Vice President Kamala Harris appears to have improved Democrats‘ chances among only one voting bloc when compared to four years ago: white college-educated voters.
There has been plenty of finger-pointing over what led to President-elect Donald Trump‘s decisive victory in the presidential election that many believed ahead of Tuesday could be one of the closest America has ever seen. One factor raised by several critics is that Democrats have lost touch with working-class Americans, which may be reflected in Tuesday’s exit polling.
Trump beat Harris in nearly every major battleground state and improved among several key demographics, namely Latino voters. According to CNN‘s exit polls from 2020 and 2024, Trump gained 14 points among Latinos, with Harris winning the bloc by just 6 points this week. In 2020, President Joe Biden won the Latino vote by 33 points.
One demographic that Harris did improve on compared to Biden’s exit polling was white voters who hold college degrees. According to CNN’s exit poll for the 2024 election, the Democratic nominee won the bloc 52 percent to 45 percent on Tuesday. In 2020, Biden won the same group 51 percent to 48 percent.
Harris, however, lost ground with voters of color who hold college degrees. While Biden won that demographic by 43 points in 2020 (70 percent to 27 percent), Harris won the same voters by 10 points less, leading Trump 65 percent to 32 percent, per CNN’s exit poll. Democrats also lost ground among voters of color who hold no degree. In 2020, Biden won the bloc 72 percent to 26 percent. On Tuesday, Harris won the same voters 64 percent to 34 percent.
By income levels, Trump also seems to have won over working-class families. In 2020, Biden won over voters making under $50,000 annually by 11 points. On Tuesday, that group swung toward Trump by 3 points (50 percent to 47 percent), per CNN’s exit polling.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who was reelected this week, released a scathing rebuke of the Democratic Party on Wednesday accusing them of ignoring working-class Americans.
“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said in a statement.
“While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change,” he added. “And they’re right.”
Newsweek has reached out to Harris’ campaign for comment.
The vice president’s team has also faced backlash from within its own party over the issue of elitism. The Philadelphia Democratic Chair, Bob Brady, told WCAU on Wednesday that he was frustrated at the lack of communication between the Harris campaign and the local party.
“Talk to us a little bit. Give us a little bit more resources. Show us some respect. Didn’t happen,” Brady said. “They were just elitist and went out there, did their own thing and didn’t include Democratic city committee or (ward leaders) or committee people. They just didn’t do it.”
A spokesperson for Harris’ team responded to Brady’s criticism, telling WCAU, “The Pennsylvania for Harris team knocked on more than two million doors in the weekend leading up to Election Day, which is two million more doors than Bob Brady’s organization can claim to have knocked during his entire tenure as party chairman.”
“If there’s any immediate takeaway from Philadelphia’s turnout this cycle, it is that Chairman Brady’s decades-long practice of fleecing campaigns for money to make up for his own lack of fundraising ability or leadership is a worthless endeavor that no future campaign should ever be forced to entertain again,” Harris spokesperson Brendan McPhillips added in the statement.
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