A guide to the basics of political demographics
How they vote, where they are on issues, and where they live
As the campaigns seek to persuade and boost turn-out for specific demographic groups, I thought I might provide a simple big-picture look at the various groups commonly discussed – for example, the Black men Harris recently courted, the Hispanics Trump sought to reach in his Univision appearance, and the college-educated Whites (especially women) Harris is attempting to win in her appeals to moderate Republicans.
For various groups, I provide a quick look at party identification, voting (and non-voting) in the last two elections, positions on a few big issues (abortion, immigration, etc.), and maps indicating percent of state population. The numbers come from a very large dataset (N > 200,000) of adult citizens that I patched together from publicly available samples from 2020 to 2023 from a number of good sources (Cooperative Election Studies, General Social Survey, American National Election Studies, Public Religion Research Institute, and a few others).
Let’s just dive in.
Black Americans
You often see U.S. political demographics start with racial splits. The core reason is that Black Americans are fundamentally different. Centrally, there exists no identifiable demographic sub-group of Black Americans who favor Republicans. Black Evangelicals? They’re mostly Democrats. Black, small-business owning millionaires? They’re mostly Democrats. Non-college, gun-owning, older, male, rural, married, churchgoing, Black veterans in the South? They’re mostly Democrats.
Further, though some groups of Black Americans less solidly favor Democrats than others, to be sure, the fault lines are often unusual. Overall, for example, young people and non-Christians tend to favor Democrats. Within the Black population, in contrast, Republican voters are especially rare among older people and Protestants.
The focus recently has been on young, Black men, who have been less-solid Democratic supporters in the Trump elections than they were in the Obama elections. To see the age/gender contrast, let’s start with older Black women.
The graphic below shows party identification, 2020 voting (with the grey portions combining non-voters and third-party voters), 2016 voting, and views on a handful of political issues (showing the extent to which those views are left-of-center or right-of-center on average). Older Black women are amazingly solid Democratic supporters, with around 16 Democrats for every Republican.
As for issue opinions, older Black women tend to be left of center across the board, but more so for some issues than others. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they skew the farthest left on issues relating to the existence of and need to address discrimination against Black Americans (an issue which I’ve labeled simply “Race” in the chart). They’re also pretty far left on average on Guns (i.e., issues relating to gun regulation), Minimum Wage (i.e., whether we ought to raise it or not), and Healthcare (e.g., support for expanding Medicare). They’re less liberal (though still left of center) on Immigration (i.e., how welcoming we should be to immigrants) and Abortion (i.e., whether it should be legal in various circumstances).
Next, here’s the chart on younger Black women – still very strong supporters of Democrats on average, but with a lot more fence-sitting. It’s generally true of younger people that they’re less likely to have strong party attachments and less likely to vote.
On the issues, younger Black women skew left overall, especially on issues relating to racial discrimination. Like their elders, on average, as a group they’re merely left-leaning rather than fulsomely liberal on abortion.
Now we move to Black men, looking at the older guys first. Overall, things here are pretty similar to what we saw with Black women, with everything moved a few points to the right.
It’s when we get to younger Black men where you see the age and gender trends merge into a pretty big deviation from the rock-solid partisanship of Blacks in the Obama years. These days, there are tons of fence-sitters, and a partisan skew of “only” around 3 Democratic voters for every Republican voter.
On the issues, younger Black men actually lean to the right on average on guns and abortion. They are strongly to the left on racial discrimination, though not as near-unanimously as Black women and older men. You see both campaigns making a push to win younger Black men because there really are lots of opportunities here – both on party-switching and on turn-out.
Black Americans are especially likely to be living in the Deep South and especially unlikely to be living in the Great Plains and New England. Here’s a map. In terms of swing states, Black Americans are a bigger deal in states like North Carolina and Georgia, and less of the big deal in places like Wisconsin and Arizona.
Hispanic and Asian Americans
In the post-Obama years, Hispanic and Asian Americans have also been shifting a bit to the right. Here’s a quick look at women and then men. Overall, Hispanic/Asian women these days have around 2 Democrats for every Republican, and Hispanic/Asian men have around 1.5 Democrats for every Republican. And both groups contain a lot of fence-sitters (at rates similar to younger Black women).
On the issues, Hispanic/Asian women lean left on average (though less so on abortion) and Hispanic/Asian men (like younger Black men) lean to the right on guns and abortion.
Unlike Black Americans, Hispanics and Asians typically do show the kinds of further demographic splits in partisan voting that you see with White Americans. For example, here I’ve split the Hispanic/Asian groups into 2 camps: Those who are Evangelicals or military veterans or gun owners vs. those who are none of those things. Take a look.
You can see the obvious contrast. Hispanic and Asian Americans – whether women or men – who are either Evangelicals or veterans or gun-owners are actually a bit more likely to be Republicans rather than Democrats and have generally right-leaning issue opinions, especially on abortion.
Hispanic and Asian Americans are more likely to be living in the Southwest. In terms of swing states, they’re a big deal in Nevada and Arizona.
So, with Hispanic and Asian Americans, there’s an overall Democratic skew, but some similar internal fissures (religion, gun ownership, etc.) to those found among White Americans. These kinds of divisions will grow more important as the population share of Hispanics and Asians continues to rise, and as the great melting pot does its thing.
White Americans
The current political cycle has contained a special focus on education and gender for White Americans. While the gender gap has been around for a while, we’ve been in the midst of an ongoing and significant shift in the education divide among Whites. If we go back to the 1970s, more education generally meant more support for Republicans. Through a series of complex movements since then, we’ve now strongly flipped that, particularly among Whites and especially in the past 8 years. These days, the more education a White American has, the more likely they are to support Democrats – and this divide is wider than it has ever been.
Here's a look at White Americans split out by gender and education. You’ll see everything you’d expect to see as you go from White college women (the most liberal White group here) to White non-college men (the most conservative).
There are also lots of subtle points here I’m neglecting, given that I’m trying to make this quick.
The first map below is of where there are more vs. fewer Whites as a percentage of each state’s population. So, you know, New England, Appalachia, and the Great Plains are really heavily White. The second map shows, within Whites, where the higher vs. lower education rates are. For example, the proportion of college vs. non-college Whites in Massachusetts, Colorado, and New Jersey is double that of West Virginia, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.
While political positions among Whites do relate to education and gender, and while it’s likely that those demographic gaps are growing and are getting a lot of attention, the starkest political divides among White Americans relate to sexual orientation and religion.
On one side are straight (i.e., heterosexual) Evangelical Christians. On the other side are the folks who are often specific targets of disapproval from straight Evangelicals – namely, LGBT folks and non-Christians (including atheists and other non-believers, as well as people in non-Christian religions) – I’m going to call this group the “Heathen Alliance” (i.e., LGBT + non-Christians). And in the middle are other Whites, primarily including mainstream Christians – most of whom avoid scorn from straight Evangelicals these days and themselves tend to have more tolerant views on members of the Heathen Alliance.
When I split our White groups into these three camps (Heathen Alliance, Religious Middle, and Straight Evangelical), now you can see clearly that the lion’s share of ideological variance among Whites is coming from these kinds of sexual and religious distinctions, though education and gender contribute as well.
OK, so let’s take stock of where we are.
The most solid Democrats:
Older Black women
White college women in the Heathen Alliance
Younger Black women
Older Black men
Groups that are largely Democrats:
White college men in the Heathen Alliance
Hispanic/Asian women who are not Evangelicals, veterans, or gun-owners
Younger Black men
White non-college women in the Heathen Alliance
Groups that are more mixed but mostly Democrats:
Hispanic/Asian men who are not Evangelicals, veterans, or gun-owners
White non-college men in the Heathen Alliance
White college women in the Religious Middle
Groups that are mixed but mostly Republicans:
Hispanic/Asian women who are Evangelicals or veterans or gun-owners
Hispanic/Asian men who are Evangelicals or veterans or gun-owners
White college men in the Religious Middle
White non-college women in the Religious Middle
Groups that are heavily Republican:
White non-college men in the Religious Middle
White college women who are Straight Evangelicals
White college men who are Straight Evangelicals
White non-college women who are Straight Evangelicals
White non-college men who are Straight Evangelicals
This tells you something about where the persuadable voters are likely to be – it’s the groups closer to the middle of the list. The groups at the two ends are largely committed to their side.
A key center group is White college folks in the Religious Middle. This is where many of the moderate Republicans or so-called “suburban” voters come from. From their issue opinions in the charts above, you can see what they might want to hear: More conservative economic themes coupled with more liberal views on racial discrimination and abortion.
Then separately there’s the issue of which groups have the most non-voters (i.e., the grey portion of the bars in the party voting charts above), which includes:
Younger Blacks
Hispanics/Asians
White non-college folks in the Heathen Alliance
White non-college folks in the Religious Middle
Obama was able to persuade/activate many in the first group in his 2008 election. Trump was able to persuade/activate many in the last group in his 2016 election.
So now here we are approaching the end of the 2024 election, with Harris courting moderate White college folks, Trump courting Hispanics, and both trying to persuade younger Black men to choose a side. And in the background, the two sides try to motivate and turn out their respective bases in swing states – including primarily Blacks and the Heathen Alliance for Democrats, and White Evangelicals for Republicans. And, no, I have no idea what the results will be.