Republicans ‘Becoming the Party of Blue-Collar Americans’

Republicans are “becoming the party of blue-collar Americans” so long as the party continues with a populist-nationalist agenda, new analysis reveals.

Overall, an NBC News survey finds, Republicans have gained 12 percentage points with working class Americans between 2010 and 2020 while losing one percentage point with Americans who hold white-collar jobs.

At the same time, Democrats have lost eight percentage points with blue-collar Americans and gained just one percent with white-collar Americans. For Republicans, since 2020, the total of white Americans in blue-collar jobs who now vote for the GOP jumped from 45 percent in 2010 to 57 percent in 2020.

The increase of support for Republicans with working class Americans has cut across racial lines. For example, whereas just 23 percent of blue-collar Hispanic Americans supported Republicans in 2010, today about 36 percent support Republicans. Working class black Americans, likewise, support Republicans at a rate of about 12 percent — a seven percentage point boost since 2010.

“For good reason,” Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) wrote online. “Republicans are the party of the working class!”

The demographic’s growing support for Republicans has occurred as President Trump introduced the “America First” agenda in 2015 which sought to boost wages, job opportunities, and quality of life specifically for working class Americans who are often shut out by the economic gains of the nation’s wealthiest and donor classes.

Trump’s economic nationalist platform — which included reducing overall immigration to tighten the labor market, imposing tariffs on foreign imports, pressuring corporations to bring manufacturing back to the United States, and opposing foreign wars — continues to be widely popular with the party’s base and swing voters.