Ever since he first came down that fabled golden escalator in 2015 to launch his long-shot bid for the presidency, there has always been a tendency to caricature the supporters of Donald Trump.
You know the type. The pot-bellied rally-goer, with a crimson Make America Great Again baseball cap almost surgically affixed, who would queue up at the Trump merchandise stalls to buy Nancy Pelosi toilet paper and T-shirts depicting the New York tycoon as Rambo or Terminator.
Donald Trump’s support is not just coming from what Hillary Clinton called “deplorables”.Credit: Bloomberg
The quintessential MAGA devotee is still often cast as a redneck and a hillbilly, the archetype that Hillary Clinton foolishly relied on when she told a Democratic fundraising event in Manhattan ahead of the 2016 election that “you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables … racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.” Since then, QAnon conspiracy theorists and January 6 insurrectionists have been added to the mix, reinforcing the sense that Trump has assembled a cult-like confederacy of the crazy.
Commonly overlooked are the Trump supporters who do not fit this mould. The supporters who pitch up at his rallies dressed in business attire or golf club smart casual. The families that arrive in high-end SUVs rather than pick-up trucks festooned with Trump ensigns. The suburban moms clutching Starbucks cold brews, liquid refreshment we ordinarily associate with sneering metropolitan elites. Then there are those who do not attend his rallies at all, but quietly cheer him on from the marble breakfast bars of their multi-million dollar McMansions. In short, the rational Trump supporter, well-heeled and well-educated, whose support is based more on reason than emotion, self-interest rather than prejudice.
In 2020, Joe Biden made significant inroads with this kind of voter, which was key to him winning the presidency. However, Trump still managed to win a narrow majority of suburban white voters – 51 per cent to 47 per cent.
This year, although his Republican rival Nikki Haley has appealed to this same demographic, Trump’s ongoing appeal with white college-educated conservatives explains why he became so dominant, so early on, in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. According to polling by Fox News, Trump’s support among this cohort doubled in 2023, as Republicans realised that alternatives, such as Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, were not ready for primetime, and prosecutors began handing down indictments against the former president.
While rational Republicans may not have the same visceral connection with Trump as his moshpit of MAGA diehards, their backing or forbearance is one of the central reasons why Trump has such a strong chance of regaining the presidency. So what explains their support?
For all Biden’s attempts to frame the election as a climactic battle to save democracy, the economy, for many rational Trump voters, is the overriding issue. And though unemployment dropped to an all-time low last year, high inflation and mortgage stress continue to bedevil the president’s chances of re-election. Petrol prices have recently fallen, but the abiding memory of the Biden years is how they more than doubled between 2020 and 2022, and reached an all-time peak in June that year of $US5 a gallon.
Beyond the MAGA moshpit, there are rational voters who back Donald Trump
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09.02.2024
Ever since he first came down that fabled golden escalator in 2015 to launch his long-shot bid for the presidency, there has always been a tendency to caricature the supporters of Donald Trump.
You know the type. The pot-bellied rally-goer, with a crimson Make America Great Again baseball cap almost surgically affixed, who would queue up at the Trump merchandise stalls to buy Nancy Pelosi toilet paper and T-shirts depicting the New York tycoon as Rambo or Terminator.
Donald Trump’s support is not just coming from what Hillary Clinton called “deplorables”.Credit: Bloomberg
The quintessential MAGA devotee is still often cast as a redneck and a hillbilly, the archetype that Hillary Clinton foolishly relied on when she told a Democratic fundraising event in Manhattan ahead of the 2016 election that “you can put half of Trump........
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