Polling throughout the year has shown that white, college-educated men are now essentially a swing group, available to either party and tilting, in fact, slightly toward Democratic candidates.
These men account for nearly one in five voters in competitive House districts, polling shows, and so their candidate choices could be enough to provide the margin of victory in some races on Tuesday.
Politically speaking, this group has traveled a long distance in recent decades. In 1994, 62% of white men with bachelor’s degrees wanted Republicans to control Congress, while 29% preferred Democrats — a net tilt to the GOP of 33 percentage points, Journal/NBC News polling found that year. Today, the picture is far different.
That’s a substantial change, especially when compared with white men who don’t have four-year college degrees. That group, often called working-class white men, remain core supporters of the Republican Party and overwhelmingly back President Trump.
But in 1994, when Journal/NBC News polling started tracking the trend, it was the white men with college degrees who leaned most heavily toward the GOP—as they did for years afterward.
In Tight Races, White Males Are the Swing Voters to Watch https://t.co/1IasrPNER6
— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) November 5, 2018