The educational divide could spell trouble for Republicans

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Republicans tend to run better among voters without a college degree than those with one, which has battered Democrats in recent presidential elections. But that same pattern could give Democrats a potentially decisive boost in next month’s midterms.

Even as President Donald Trump’s approval rating craters among Americans with a college degree, history suggests those well-educated voters are virtually certain to constitute a slightly larger share of the electorate this year than in 2024. It’s the political equivalent of what economists call the “college premium” in wages.

By itself, the typical midterm tilt toward a more educated electorate may not be large enough to swing many competitive races. But the change could provide a crucial thumb on the scale for Democrats, particularly in red-leaning Senate races and House districts where the party sees opportunities to overcome long years of futility.

College graduates have long made up a larger share of the vote in midterm than presidential elections. But the gap could be wider than usual this year, given the evidence that disapproval of Trump’s second-term performance has spread into some of his core groups — including rural and working-class White voters who lack a college degree.

Trump is now desperately trying to rally those voters. If he can mobilize enough of them, it will help Republicans survive the mounting tide of discontent — particularly in heartland states such as Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, where White people without a college degree represent a disproportionate share of the vote. But if fewer of those turn out than usual, the electorate will tilt even further toward the well-educated — and, given their alienation from Trump, that could create the conditions for big Democratic gains.

“The agonizing question from now until the election will be whether non-college-educated Republicans — particularly White non-college — hold their nose and turn out at rates for Republicans that keep the environment more at a ‘blue wave’ level, or whether they stay home and the differential causes a crossover into a ‘blue tsunami’ level,” says Bryan Bennett, a Democratic pollster and data analyst.

Even small differences in the breakdown between college and non-college voters will affect the 2026 outcome because of the now-consistent educational polarization in support for the parties.

Through the heart of the 20th century, from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s through Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s, Democrats consistently ran better among Americans without a four-year degree than those with advanced education. In those years, Democrats were sometimes described as the party of people who showered after work, and Republicans as the party of those who showered before.

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That alignment cracked in the 1960s, as Democratic efforts to promote civil rights for racial minorities shattered their hold on White working-class voters in both the North and the South. Over the succeeding decades, Republicans expanded their blue-collar beachheads around culturally polarizing issues such as crime, gun control, abortion, immigration and later, LGBTQ rights. No Democratic presidential nominee has carried a majority of White voters without a four-year college degree since Johnson in his 1964 landslide, according to calculations from the American National Election Study by political scientist Alan Abramowitz.

Under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, Democrats, conversely, began improving their performance among college-educated voters, who often took liberal positions on the same social issues that drew non-college voters toward the GOP.

This long-developing reconfiguration — what I’ve called the class inversion — has reached a towering peak in Trump’s polarizing presidency. Exit polls found that he won about two-thirds of White voters without a college degree in all three of his presidential campaigns, the highest share for any candidate in either party since Ronald Reagan in 1984. In 2024, Trump also made significant gains among Black, Latino and Asian Americans without a four-year-degree, carrying between one-third and two-fifths of them, according to the exit polls and the Pew Validated Voters study .

Meanwhile, Trump has consistently faced more resistance from well-educated voters. About 55% of all those with college degrees voted against him in 2020 and 2024, exit polls have found. In 2018, White college graduates constituted more than their national share of the population in over four-fifths of the House seats Republicans lost during Trump’s first midterm election. Support from suburban college grads helped blunt the Democrats’ midterm losses in 2022.

In Trump’s second term, as I’ve written , his support among both White and nonwhite voters without a four-year degree has significantly eroded amid widespread discontent with inflation, his tariffs and the Iran war. That decline has been the central factor enabling Democrats to expand the map into previously Republican-leaning areas with large populations of working-class White people, including the heartland Senate races and House districts in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and elsewhere.

But resistance to Trump remains considerably greater among voters with a degree than those without one. In a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters released last week, Trump’s approval rating among college graduates was nearly 40 points net negative (29% positive to 68% negative). That was almost four times larger than his approval deficit among voters without a college degree (42% to 53%).

This divergence in attitudes toward Trump is translating into a stark educational split in preferences for the midterm elections. The NYT/Siena survey found that the share of college graduates backing Democrats for the House (59%) was 13 points higher than the share of those without degrees (46%). Last week’s University of Houston poll on the Texas Senate race found Democrat James Talarico likewise running 14 points better among voters with a degree (56%) than those without (42%). The latest CNN poll found Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown running 15 points better among college-plus voters than those without degrees; in Iowa , CNN found Democratic Senate candidate Josh Turek ran 22 points better.

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Not all national and state surveys this year are finding such large educational disparities in Democratic support, but the bigger difference measured in some polls would be consistent with the results of other recent elections. Exit polls found that Democratic House candidates ran 14 to 15 points better among college than non-college voters of all races in both the 2022 and 2018 midterms.

This persistent gap suggests that even small shifts in the educational composition of the electorate can have big impacts in close races.

Strategists on both sides agree that Republicans now benefit when voters without a college degree make up a larger share of the vote, as they always do in presidential campaigns.

But generally, the college share of voters rises in elections that attract less attention and turnout from the public. “The educational differences are going to be even greater when you get into those low-turnout elections,” says Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who studies electoral participation.

As McDonald notes, that dynamic partly explains why Democrats have consistently performed so well in relatively lower-turnout special elections during both of Trump’s terms. It also shapes the composition of the voting pool during midterms.

Turnout for all groups falls between each presidential race and the midterm two years later. But it tends to fall even further for voters with less education than those with more. “The presidential election is a big deal; everybody knows that, everywhere,” says William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Metro think tank. “The midterms, maybe not so much.”

An analysis of census data that Frey conducted for CNN quantifies how that engagement gap consistently reshapes the voting pool between presidential campaigns and the subsequent midterm.

Voters without a college degree still cast a majority of all ballots in presidential and midterm elections alike. But voters who held at least a four-year college degree represented about 4 to 5 percentage points more of the vote in 2014 than in 2012, 2018 than 2016 and 2022 than 2020, according to Frey’s analysis.

Compounding the effect of this midterm differential has been a steady increase in the share of college-educated voters in each presidential election. The census found that college-educated voters cast 45% of all votes in 2024, up from less than 37% in 2012. That means each midterm increase in college grads is occurring off a higher base. (College grads are growing in the electorate because they are growing in the society: The share of all Americans with a four-year degree nearly doubled between 1992 and 2024, with women making much larger gains than men.)

The other major sources of data on how Americans vote disagree on the absolute level of college graduates in the electorate. The Pew Validated Voters study , the projections by the Democratic targeting firm Catalist , and the massive Cooperative Election Study poll all found that college grads cast 40 to 41% of the 2024 vote, slightly less than the Census number.

But critically, almost without exception, those data sources agree on the same relative trajectory as the census: The share of college-educated voters is steadily rising across each presidential election, and the share bumps up a few points more in each subsequent midterm. Similar to the census, for instance, Catalist found that the share of the presidential vote cast by college graduates increased by 7 points from 2012 to 2024. Likewise, it found that the share of the vote cast by college graduates soared by 6 points from 2020 to the succeeding 2022 midterm.

Bennett, the Democratic pollster, believes the education shift again will be substantial this year. In most polls, he says, “just as there is a partisan differential in … enthusiasm about voting in the midterms favoring Democrats, there is also (an) elevated differential between college and non-college.” Using the baseline from Catalist and Pew, Bennett expects college graduates will cast about 45% of the vote next month. Using the census as his baseline, Frey puts his estimate even higher, at nearly 48%.

As Frey’s figures (see table) show, all these changes have been felt in virtually every state with a competitive Senate race this year. Even in states such as Michigan, Ohio and Maine, where voters without a degree constitute an outsize proportion of the overall electorate, their share has been declining, particularly in midterms. In all three of those states, Frey estimates that college graduates will cast as much as 45% of votes this year, up from the mid-30s in the 2014 midterms.

These changes matter largely because more college voters remain dubious of Trump than those without degrees — despite Trump’s second-term slippage among the latter. But there’s also evidence that voters without degrees — especially White non-college voters —remain more resistant to voting for Democrats, even when they are disappointed in Trump.

In the new NYT/Siena College poll, for instance, 84% of college-educated Whites who disapproved of Trump’s performance said they intend to vote Democratic for the House; only 77% of Whites without a degree who disapproved of Trump intended to back Democrats, according to detailed results provided by the pollster.

Likewise, in the most recent CNN polling, 80% of college-educated Whites down on Trump said they would support the Democratic Senate candidates in Ohio and Iowa. But Turek was attracting just 62% of non-college Whites who disapproved in Iowa, and Brown only 72% of them in Ohio. Data provided by the Pew Research Center from its latest national survey show that minorities without a degree who disapprove of Trump are also less likely to say they’re supporting Democrats than minorities with advanced education.

Trump’s final campaign swing seems designed to energize core Republican voters, primarily those without college degrees, by stressing the cultural and racial issues that divide them from Democrats, even if they are unhappy about his economic record. Like Bennett, many strategists on both sides agree the critical variable in these last weeks will be how many of those cross-pressured blue-collar Republicans turn out and stick with their party, especially in the red-leaning states that will decide Senate control.

“The Democratic side is locked and loaded,” says Daron Shaw, a Republican pollster and political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. “I think all the action is on the Republican side. The question is: Are Republicans going to show, and are those who show actually going to defect?”

If Trump mobilizes enough blue-collar Republicans, that will limit the electorate’s tilt toward voters with degrees and likely allow Republicans to contain their losses. But if too many of those working-class conservatives stay home, the midterm college premium could leave Republicans lamenting their final grade — even in states where the party has not been seriously tested in years.

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共和党在没有大学学历的选民中往往比在有大学学历的选民中表现更好，这在近几届总统选举中对民主党造成了沉重打击。但同样的模式也可能在下个月的中期选举中为民主党带来决定性的助力。

尽管唐纳德·特朗普总统在拥有大学学历的美国人中的支持率大幅下降，但历史表明，这些受过良好教育的选民今年在选民中所占的比例几乎肯定会比2024年略高。这在政治上相当于经济学家所说的工资中的“大学溢价”。

单凭中期选举选民受教育程度普遍提高这一趋势本身，可能不足以左右许多竞争激烈的选战。但这种变化或许能为民主党带来至关重要的助力，尤其是在那些传统上倾向于共和党的参议院和众议院选区，民主党在这些地区看到了扭转多年颓势的机会。

长期以来，大学毕业生在中期选举中的投票比例一直高于总统选举。但鉴于有证据表明，对特朗普第二任期表现的不满情绪已经蔓延到他的一些核心支持者群体中——包括缺乏大学学历的农村和工薪阶层白人选民——今年的差距可能会比往年更大。

特朗普现在正竭力争取这些选民的支持。如果他能动员足够多的人，将有助于共和党人渡过日益高涨的不满浪潮——尤其是在密歇根州、俄亥俄州、爱荷华州、堪萨斯州和内布拉斯加州等核心州，这些州中没有大学学历的白人选民占比过高。但如果这些选民的投票率低于往常，选民结构将进一步向受过良好教育的人群倾斜——鉴于他们对特朗普的疏离，这可能为民主党取得重大胜利创造条件。

“从现在到选举日，最令人痛苦的问题是，未受过大学教育的共和党人——尤其是未受过大学教育的白人——是否会捏着鼻子投票，使共和党的投票率保持在‘蓝色浪潮’的水平，还是他们会待在家里，导致这种差异引发‘蓝色海啸’的局面，”民主党民调专家和数据分析师布莱恩·贝内特说。

即使大学毕业生和非大学毕业生选民之间的构成差异很小，也会影响 2026 年的选举结果，因为目前对各政党的支持存在着持续的教育程度两极分化。

在20世纪中叶，从富兰克林·罗斯福20世纪30年代的新政到林登·约翰逊20世纪60年代的伟大社会，民主党在没有四年制大学学位的美国人中的支持率始终高于受过高等教育的人群。在那些年里，民主党有时被形容为“下班后洗澡的人的政党”，而共和党则被形容为“上班前洗澡的人的政党”。

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这种联盟在20世纪60年代开始瓦解，当时民主党为争取少数族裔民权所做的努力，削弱了其在南北两地对白人工薪阶层选民的掌控。在随后的几十年里，共和党围绕着一些具有文化争议性的议题，例如犯罪、枪支管制、堕胎、移民以及后来的LGBTQ权益，不断扩大其在蓝领阶层中的支持基础。根据政治学家艾伦·阿布拉莫维茨（Alan Abramowitz）在美国国家选举研究中的计算，自约翰逊在1964年以压倒性优势赢得大选以来，再也没有一位民主党总统候选人能够获得多数未获得四年制大学学位的白人选民的支持。

相反，在 20 世纪 90 年代比尔·克林顿总统执政期间，民主党在受过大学教育的选民中的表现开始好转，这些选民往往在与共和党相同的社会问题上持自由主义立场。

这种由来已久的重组——我称之为阶级倒置——在特朗普极具争议的总统任期内达到了顶峰。出口民调显示，在他三次总统竞选中，他都赢得了约三分之二未受过大学教育的白人选民的支持，这是自1984年罗纳德·里根以来，两党候选人中任何一位候选人获得的最高比例。根据出口民调和皮尤研究中心“验证选民”研究，在2024年，特朗普在没有四年制大学学位的非裔、拉丁裔和亚裔美国人中也取得了显著进展，赢得了其中三分之一到五分之二的选票。

与此同时，特朗普一直面临着来自受过良好教育的选民的更大阻力。出口民调显示，在2020年和2024年的选举中，约有55%的大学毕业生投票反对他。2018年，在特朗普首次中期选举中，共和党失去的众议院席位中，超过五分之四的席位中，白人大学毕业生所占比例高于其在全国人口中的比例。郊区大学毕业生的支持帮助民主党在2022年的中期选举中挽回了一些颜面。

正如我之前所写，在特朗普的第二个任期内，由于民众对通货膨胀、关税政策和伊朗战争普遍不满，他在白人和非白人选民（尤其是那些没有四年制大学学位的选民）中的支持率都大幅下降。这一支持率下滑是民主党得以将版图扩展到此前倾向共和党的、拥有大量白人工薪阶层人口的地区的关键因素，其中包括宾夕法尼亚州、俄亥俄州、密歇根州、威斯康星州、爱荷华州等地的参议院和众议院选区。

但拥有大学学历的选民对特朗普的抵触情绪仍然远高于没有大学学历的选民。上周公布的《纽约时报》/锡耶纳学院民调显示，特朗普在大学毕业生中的支持率净值为负近40个百分点（29%支持，68%反对）。这一数字几乎是他在没有大学学历的选民中支持率下降幅度（42%对53%）的四倍。

对特朗普态度的这种分歧正转化为中期选举中选民支持率的显著教育差异。《纽约时报》/锡耶纳学院的民调发现，大学毕业生支持民主党众议员候选人的比例（59%）比未获得学位者（46%）高出13个百分点。上周休斯顿大学针对德克萨斯州参议员竞选的民调也显示，民主党候选人詹姆斯·塔拉里科在大学毕业生选民中的支持率（56%）比未获得学位者（42%）高出14个百分点。最新的CNN民调显示，俄亥俄州民主党参议员候选人谢罗德·布朗在大学及以上学历选民中的支持率比未获得学位者高出15个百分点；在爱荷华州，CNN的民调显示，民主党参议员候选人乔什·图雷克的支持率高出22个百分点。

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并非所有今年的全国性和州级民调都显示民主党支持者的教育程度存在如此大的差异，但部分民调显示的较大差异与近期其他选举的结果相符。出口民调显示，在2022年和2018年的中期选举中，民主党众议院候选人在所有选举中，受过大学教育的选民支持率比未受过大学教育的选民高出14到15个百分点。

这种持续存在的差距表明，即使选民教育构成发生微小的变化，也会对势均力敌的选举产生重大影响。

双方的战略家都认为，共和党现在受益于没有大学学历的选民所占的更大比例的选票，这种情况在总统竞选中一直存在。

但一般来说，在公众关注度和投票率较低的选举中，大学学历选民的比例会上升。“在低投票率的选举中，教育程度的差异会更加显著，”佛罗里达大学研究选举参与度的政治学家迈克尔·麦克唐纳说道。

正如麦克唐纳所指出的，这种动态在一定程度上解释了为什么在特朗普两届任期内，民主党在投票率相对较低的特别选举中一直表现出色。它也影响着中期选举的选民构成。

所有群体的投票率在每次总统大选和两年后的中期选举之间都会下降。但受教育程度较低的选民的投票率往往比受教育程度较高的选民下降得更多。“总统选举意义重大；每个人都知道这一点，无论身处何地，”布鲁金斯学会都市智库的人口统计学家威廉·弗雷说。“但中期选举，可能就没那么重要了。”

Frey 为 CNN 进行的人口普查数据分析量化了这种参与度差距如何持续地重塑总统竞选和随后的中期选举之间的选民群体。

弗雷的分析显示，在总统选举和中期选举中，没有大学学位的选民仍然投出了大多数选票。但拥有至少四年制大学学位的选民在2014年的投票率比2012年高出约4到5个百分点，2018年比2016年高出约4到5个百分点，2022年比2020年高出约4到5个百分点。

中期选举结果的差异，还与历届总统选举中大学学历选民比例的稳步增长密切相关。人口普查数据显示，2024年大学学历选民的投票率占总投票数的45%，高于2012年的不到37%。这意味着每次中期选举中大学毕业生人数的增长，都是在更高的基数上实现的。（大学毕业生在选民群体中的增长，源于他们在社会中的增长：1992年至2024年间，拥有四年制大学学位的美国人比例几乎翻了一番，其中女性的增长幅度远大于男性。）

其他关于美国人投票方式的主要数据来源，在大学毕业生在选民中的绝对比例上存在分歧。皮尤研究中心的“验证选民”研究、民主党目标定位公司Catalist的预测，以及大规模的“合作选举研究”民调均发现，大学毕业生在2024年大选中的投票率在40%到41%之间，略低于人口普查数据。

但至关重要的是，几乎所有这些数据来源都与人口普查结果一致，呈现出相同的相对趋势：大学学历选民的比例在历届总统选举中稳步上升，并在随后的每次中期选举中进一步增长。例如，与人口普查结果类似，Catalist 发现，从 2012 年到 2024 年，大学毕业生在总统选举中的投票比例增加了 7 个百分点。同样，Catalist 还发现，从 2020 年到 2022 年中期选举，大学毕业生的投票比例飙升了 6 个百分点。

民主党民调专家贝内特认为，今年选民的教育水平将再次发生显著变化。他表示，大多数民调显示，“正如中期选举中民主党选民的投票热情存在党派差异一样，大学学历和非大学学历选民之间的投票热情也存在显著差异。” 贝内特以Catalist和皮尤研究中心的数据为基准，预计下个月大学毕业生将投出约45%的选票。而弗雷则以人口普查数据为基准，给出了更高的估计，接近48%。

正如弗雷的数据（见表格）所示，今年几乎所有参议院席位竞争激烈的州都感受到了这些变化。即使在密歇根州、俄亥俄州和缅因州等非大学学历选民占选民总数比例较高的州，他们的比例也在下降，尤其是在中期选举中。弗雷估计，在这三个州，大学毕业生今年的投票率将高达45%，高于2014年中期选举的30%左右。

这些变化之所以重要，主要是因为尽管特朗普在第二个任期内于非大学学历选民中支持率有所下滑，但大学学历选民对特朗普的质疑声仍然高于非大学学历选民。此外，也有证据表明，即使对特朗普感到失望，非大学学历选民——尤其是白人非大学学历选民——仍然更不愿意投票给民主党。

例如，在《纽约时报》/锡耶纳学院的最新民调中，84% 受过大学教育且不认可特朗普表现的白人表示，他们打算在众议院选举中投票给民主党；而根据民调机构提供的详细结果，只有 77% 没有大学学位且不认可特朗普的白人打算支持民主党。

同样，在CNN最近的民调中，80%受过大学教育且反对特朗普的白人表示，他们会支持俄亥俄州和爱荷华州的民主党参议员候选人。但图雷克在爱荷华州只获得了62%反对特朗普的非大学学历白人的支持，布朗在俄亥俄州也只获得了72%的支持。皮尤研究中心最新全国调查的数据显示，与受过高等教育的少数族裔相比，未获得学位且反对特朗普的少数族裔也更不愿意表示支持民主党。

特朗普的最后竞选活动似乎旨在激励共和党的核心选民，尤其是那些没有大学学历的人，他强调文化和种族问题，这些问题将他们与民主党人区分开来，即便他们对他的经济政绩并不满意。与贝内特一样​​，双方的许多策略师都认为，最后几周的关键变数在于，有多少面临两难境地的蓝领共和党人会出来投票并继续支持本党，尤其是在那些将决定参议院控制权的倾向共和党的州。

“民主党方面已经做好了充分准备，”德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的共和党民调专家兼政治学家达伦·肖说。“我认为所有的行动都在共和党方面。问题是：共和党人会出来投票吗？那些出来投票的人真的会倒戈吗？”

如果特朗普能够动员足够多的蓝领共和党人，就能限制选民向高学历选民的倾斜，并可能使共和党控制住损失。但如果太多工薪阶层的保守派选民选择待在家中，那么中期选举中大学学历带来的“优势”可能会让共和党人最终失望——即便是在那些共和党多年来未曾真正经受考验的州。