Date of Award
2020
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Political Science
First Advisor
Patrick Donnay
Abstract
In 2016, Democratic Candidate for President Hillary Clinton faced off against Republican Candidate Donald Trump in what was expected to be a lopsided victory for the Democrats. As the campaigns and researchers did a post-mortem on the results, they saw that white voters in key states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan weren’t as motivated to get to the polls for Candidate Hillary Clinton versus her opponent Donald Trump. I took a deep dive into trying try to find the reason that why labor union members could have broken from their traditional ranks of Democrats to vote for Donald Trump by examining some of the biggest social issues in the 2016 general election. The data I am examining is the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey administered by YouGov. The CCES 2016 surveyed 64,400+ US citizens which was administered in two waves being the pre-election and post-election waves. I find that there is a small group of Democratic-identifying union members that break from the Democratic Party on major issues and I identify them as a part of those white voters who may have voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. Their defection may have resulted in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania flipping from Democratic in 2012 to Republican in 2018.
Recommended Citation
Sauser, Matthew, "Labor Union Members' Stance on Major Social Issues in the 2016 General Election" (2020). Political Science Theses and Capstones. 32.
https://pines.bemidjistate.edu/capstone-polisci/32
