If Trump loses Maine’s Second Congressional District, the key bloc will be white women without college degrees.
Maine-2 is a district with a lot of white voters without college degrees. As paper mills and other manufacturing facilities have closed, it’s suffered a loss of good paying union jobs. Those conditions in other places in the country characterize good locales for Trump.
BUT...National data suggest white working class women are moving to Clinton from Trump
There has always been a gender gap in this election. That’s nothing unusual, but the gap between women’s and men’s preferences is larger than typically found.
Commentators have pointed to how college educated white women support Clinton more than previous Democratic candidates. That’s important for states like Pennsylvania, where those voters in its suburbs push the state’s electoral votes toward Clinton.
But now we see shifts among working class white women.
According to a new PPRI/The Atlantic poll:
Trump’s support has collapsed among white women without college degrees. Until recently, they formed Trump’s largest bloc of support. In 2004, they voted for George W. Bush by 19 points; in 2008, they backed John McCain by 17 points; and in 2012, they went with Mitt Romney by 20 points. This poll finds them evenly split between Clinton and Trump, with each drawing 40 percent support.
Without some new public opinion data, we don’t know how ME-2 stands. But if Trump loses the district after being ahead, Clinton’s win likely will be attributable to movement toward her among white working class women. The same will be true for states like Ohio, Iowa and Florida.
http://pollways.bangordailynews.com/...onal-district/
