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Nothing has changed that; that trend will continue. Millennials and Gen Z have a much higher proportion of college [educational attainment], and theyre increasing their share of the electorate. The values of those voters continue to be aligned with Democratsthough I actually think they are more likely to be ticket-splitters.

If you look at the midterms versus what happened in 2020, [Democrats] had a drop-off in support with them, but I think they were acting normallywhereas Trumps new white working-class and rural voters were not. Many of them are new to the electorate and voting with a different kind of energyvoting straight-ticket to save the country. Anything short of that [level of support] is going to look like Democrats are just renting those suburban voters. But the Democrats new voters were being normal people who dont vote 100 percent [party line].

So, you see that trend continuing? Were not yet at the high-water mark for the diploma divide?

I do, at least with those people who are normal votersthat is, who are kind of in and out of elections. But on the white working-class and rural side, what happened in both 16 and 20 was this [surge of] new voters who hadnt voted before. So I have no idea whats going to happen in the midterms. I can see one scenario where, with the Democrats in control, those voters are motivated even more to turn out in huge numbers to save the country. Or they could drop off as they did in 2018 or maybe even like they did in [the Senate runoff elections in] Georgia, where Trump was not on the ballot. Are these voters anti-Democratic Party? Will they reward what looks like it might be a successful Democratic administration in the midtermswhich we havent had for a while? I have no idea.

Youve mentioned this sense, among certain Trump voters, of needing to save the country. Describe that. What animates that existential concern? Is it purely about race? Is it something else?

Yeah, racial resentment is a very strong piece. I think we underestimate how powerful a moment it was when Barack Obama won and then got reelected. To this coalition, they view Obamacare as simply paying off his base of voters with big government payoffs to ensure a permanent Democratic majority.

I think Obama campaigning in every election has given them the rationale that they have to vote. Its why Trump made reversing Obamas legacyreversing everything Obama didfeature centrally in his rallies: Obama represented a whole changed America that they had to stop.

That actually sounds a lot like an aspect of the Reagan Democrat dynamic you identified in Macomb County, Michigan, in the 80s and 90s. You wrote about those focus groups in 1995s Middle-Class Dreams: These white voters expressed a profound distaste for Black Americans, a sentiment that pervaded almost everything they thought about government and politics. Blacks constitute the explanation for their vulnerability and for almost everything that had gone wrong in their lives; not being black was what constituted being middle class. Is that the same dynamic at play now, decades later?

No. Theres a step in this history: In the end, these Reagan Democrats voted for Obama. It was competitive in 08 and 12, but when you listened to these voters, they decided Barack Obama was not Jesse Jackson: He was not a candidate they saw as running to represent his people. They thought he would fight for all Americans, and they ultimately voted for himwhich is pretty astonishing. What they were most concerned about was NAFTA, corporations sending jobs to Mexico, CEOs enriching themselves and not investing in their own companies. They were incredibly focused on globalization. They were on the front lines of people angry about what was happening with corporate America, and were voting for Democratsand for Obama, specificallybecause they thought he would take up those issues.

When you look at [Bidens] economic plan, a lot of it was about America First. It was about building in America. It was about stopping outsourcing. Its still part of build back better.

That competed with this racial dynamic. Obama benefited from it. But Trump benefited from it, too, because he ran on reversing all these trade agreements, and Democrats were pansies on talking about trade in 2016. Hillary Clinton was really for [the Trans-Pacific Partnership], and Trump was authentically campaigning against NAFTA, against TPP and was depicted as fighting for working people, which Democrats hadnt done for a long time. Trade was key to that. It was a key part of why he was winning these votersnot just because of race, but because America First represented fighting for American industry and American manufacturing, and Democrats were about globalization and trade and were actually embarrassed to attack some companies for moving jobs to Mexico.

That changed with Biden, by the way. Biden, when he came out of the basementas Trump described ithe very self-consciously went right to these states first, and said, I hear you. Im listening. Im not of that school. He didnt say the word deplorable; he said, Im listening to you. And when you look at his economic plan, a lot of it was about America First. It was about building in America. It was about stopping outsourcing. America First rhetoric was a part of Bidens campaign. Its still part of build back better.

Right now, polling shows overwhelming public support for Bidens $1.9 trillion stimulus package. Im curious how you read that. Is it a sign that the Reagan-era consensus about small government is over?

I dont think the Republicans are as disillusioned with Trump as polls suggest, but I do think theres huge support for the relief package. Trump voters, a large portion of them, want a welfare state that is dependable for working people. The Reagan Democrats and these white working-class voters are incredibly pro-Medicaid expansion. Look at what happened in any of any of these Senate races in 18 in states [with initiatives on] on the minimum wage or Medicaid expansion. The minimum wage and Medicaid expansion won by much bigger numbers [than the incumbents]. I mean, it won in Utah.

To put a fine point on it: Do you think that the Reagan Democrat era is over? Is it still a useful lens for us to look at U.S. politics?

Well, look: There is a kind of suburban, white working-class voter today who faces a lot of competing dynamics that are similar to the Reagan era. Its globalization and the welfare state, and whether that is going to work for them.

But there are also new voters coming in who are responsive to [appeals to] white nationalism and racial resentment, and whose overwhelming motivation is a deep worry that Black people and immigrants will control the country. For these new voters, thats still issue number one; its not competing with trade. Its the reason theyre voting. Its the reason why theyre registering.

But the Reagan Democrats were not Republicans. That was the piece that was central to them: They did not become Republicans. They were for Reagan, but they wanted to be for Democrats. And I think its still true that we still have a lot of these voters who had been voting for Democrats recentlywhether for [Bill] Clinton or Obamawho also voted for Trump but arent Republicans.

Do you see something similar at play now, with highly educated suburban voters who had long thought of themselves as Republicans now voting for Democrats, even if they dont think of themselves as members of the party? Are Biden Republicans going to play a similar role in shaping politics in the 2020s?

I think theres two kinds of Biden Republicanstwo trends.

One of them is you saw quite affluent, very Republican towns [in suburban counties], and Biden got a very large percentage of votes from those counties. They are more affluent college graduates voting for Biden. Will they stick? They may, given how Trump is defining the Republican Party.

And the other piece is that Biden is very self-consciously campaigning for Macomb County-type, white working-class voters [for whom] race is not the only thing driving their vote, but who went to Trump [in 2016] because of globalization and their belief that Democrats are not fighting for American workers. Biden is fighting for those voters, too.

Its interesting to see how Republicans are trying to respond to this political dynamic in the suburbs. Certainly, the GOP push on school reopenings right now seems directly like a play for suburban voters. Do you see that as a promising gambit for them?

Lets see how this plays out over time. I mean, if you listen to what they said at CPAC, the reason they think its wrong for Democratic states to get this aid [in Bidens $1.9 trillion stimulus plan] is because theyve been following health protocols and opening up their economies in a paced way to reflect where they are on dealing with the [coronavirus] crisis. These Republicans are Covid deniers who want to open up the economy.

But what does this look like at the end of 2021? What does it look like after these places get their state aid? After schools are fully back in-person in the fall? Particularly if the economy is fairly strongif Bidens going forward with his infrastructure plans; if hes going forward with his tax cuts and credits to working people; if theres more affordable health care. What will politics look like when the schools are open and it looks like Bidens been successful?

Youve noted that many of the new voters Trump brought out are people who see an existential battle for Americawho see this as cultural and race-related. And that seems to be a real bind for Republicans: To win back some of these suburban districts, they may need to adopt a posture thats less driven by white grievance politics. But if they do that, they risk turning off this segment of new Trump voters who might otherwise stay home. How do they navigate that? Its like squeezing a water balloonyou get a grip on one part, and it gets bigger elsewhere.

If you look at the trends in this election, [Trumps campaign] was able to, like, wage a race war with a massive increase in turnout in the rural areas and among white working-class voters. But the percentage of eligible voters who are older than Millennials dropped by 8 points. So, for Republicans to be successful with this strategy while going against that demographic trend, you need a continually animating and increasingly intense and effective effort to turn out the vote.

[In 2020,] the percentage of millennials and Gen Z voters went up, I think, 6 points. About two-thirds of that was from the natural trend [of demography], but about one-third was from increased turnout compared to the midterms. And thats a very diverse, more college-educated, group. And Biden won them. Theres no way thats not going to be a bigger bloc in the [next] midterms and, certainly, presidential election. How do you win if you dont compete at all for those voters, and you animate their turnoutand do the same for college-educated voters who want a more open country? Its just in contradiction.

Its interesting, when you look at last weekends CPAC straw poll, only 55 percent [of respondents] said theyd vote for Trump if the 2024 Republican primary was held today. People underestimate his [level of] insecurity about his hold on the Republican Partywhich meant he had to command absolute loyalty and punish anybody who wasnt for him. That will obviously continue. This battle is going to carry on within the Republican Party. Hes going to lead the party as long as he is alive and breathingeven if hes under indictment or bankrupt, [hell blame it all] on the IRS and FBI; hell be a victim.

They are going to have to lose a few elections before there can be a new dynamic within the Republican Partyjust as the Democrats lost a lot of national elections before Bill Clinton was able to change the party.

On the racial resentment component: You were Nelson Mandelas pollster. Before your work in Macomb County in the 80s, you were polling in South Africa during apartheid. How does that experience frame the way you see the politics surrounding race in the U.S.?

Initially, I was an academic doing pollingbut not on electionsand wrote very obscure books. I wrote a book [in 1980] called Race and State in Capitalist Development that has a cult following. When I started the book, it was supposed to be equally about Alabama and the American South, as well as South Africa, Israel and Northern Ireland. I got hooked on South Africa, ended up writing many more chapters about it. I interviewed business leaders, trade union leaders and leaders of farm organizations during the apartheid era trying to understand what they were bringing to the market. I was arguing that the decisions they were making were not leading to a breakdown of apartheid. The normal assumption was that if you had industrial development, capitalist development, it would lead to less racial division. I was arguing that, in fact, it will, for some period, exacerbate racial divisions before it undermines them.

What I was trying to understand was: What were the rational decisions that people were making, coming out of this racial history that they all live with? How do you use that history? That meant [exhibiting] understanding and empathy when Id go to interview the trade union leaderssome of whom negotiated and built into the employment structure a racial structure very similar to Alabama. They were making kind of rational decisions as trade unionists to limit competition [for their jobs]. But then in other industries, like government, unions were broader and more inclusive and tried to bring nonwhites into the unions. I had an empathy, trying to understand working people and the history that they live with when they make decisions, but also how their leaders made decisionsnot just political, but within civil society and the economy.

I think its part of why I was able to listen to Macomb County workers. I was arguing: If you bring them a thing theyll agree with, like universal health care, these voters arent done with Democrats. Theyre not done with Democrats if you are talking about universal issues that they can gain from. Even though [some of these voters] were clearly racist, I was not willing to say that theres not something that lies behind that that we need to understand and that enables us to find a broader coalition and draws on their better nature.

When I presented my stuff at the Democratic National Committee [meeting in Chicago in 1985], I was ostracized because I was saying that these voters had to be part of our Democratic coalition. That was a time when Jesse Jackson was competing [for leadership] within the Democratic Party. I was ostracized. Its why I ended up working for the Democratic Leadership Council: They were willing to hire me, but not the DNC. [Greenbergs work for the DLC ended up leading to his work for then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who implemented the Macomb County findings in his messaging during his quest for the presidency.]

How does the racial resentment you saw in studying South Africa compare with the racial divide you see in the U.S. right now?

During the apartheid period, their fear was existential: the fear that only by maintaining this apartheid system could they maintain their way of lifeand that, no, we couldnt do this in pieces, because you once do, you began to chip apartheid away.

I dont want to put all the Trump voters in that world. There are a lot of them who havent been involved at all. Theyve been politically disengaged. But Trump has brought a segment of white nationalists in. Thats very real and that [apartheid-era fear in South Africa] does look like their world. But that isnt true of all Trump voters.

Prior to the 2020 campaign, you wondered whether Democrats were ready to use government after this decade of anti-government tyranny. Based on what youve seen so far, are they?

Absolutely, yes. Im actually stunned by how much consensus there is around using the government to really deliver for people. I think the Biden administration buys that. The gap between the progressive wing and the Biden wingif that is a wingis small. You look at the relief package, and theres like one piece theyre arguing about. But if you look at what theyre agreeing on, introducing a child benefitnot just child care, but also a child benefit, which is more of a European kind of safety netcombined with a great expansion on health care, I think youre dealing with a big change. [Full disclosure: Greenbergs wife is Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a leading proponent of the child benefit.]

Right now, everyone thinks that government needs to deliver in a big way. I think that scares Republicans. And it will be interesting to see. People are going to see real benefits, not just the $2,000 stimulus piece, but something more enduring. If you look at the proposed $3,600 per child; thats delivered [in installments] monthly into peoples checking accounts. That not only reduces child poverty; its virtually every middle-class person that we are talking about.

Obama was pro-globalization, and believed we benefited from it. He would have been embarrassed to go see a company that was bringing jobs back from abroad to build in America But Biden will.

Biden is willing to say, Im fighting to do this. Weve not had a Democrat I mean, when Clinton ran in 92, [his message] was very much about fighting for the middle class. It had a very populist and nationalist component to it. But [that was not the case] further into his administration, when [the virtues of] free trade was more part of the Democratic assumptions about the world.

Obama was pro-globalization and believed we benefited from it. He would have been embarrassed to go see a company that was bringing jobs back from abroad to build in America. He would have been embarrassed to highlight that. But Biden will. Were looking at a very different time.

At the start of every focus group, you ask people to fill in the blank in this sentence: I feel ___ about the way things are going in the country. How would you, Stan Greenberg, fill in that blank?

I feel deeply, deeply uncertain and foreboding. I think were in a battle for democracy whose outcome is uncertain.

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The Rise of the Biden Republicans - POLITICO