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Pew Study Shows Democratic Support Has Been Dropping Gradually Among Middle-Class Voters

Ideastream Public Media | By Phil DeOliveira

Published December 16, 2016 at 6:05 PM EST

Pew says middle-class voters have been easing away from Democrats, not making a sudden break with this election.

The Pew Research Center has released a report that shows a progressive decline of Democratic support in the nation’s middle class, not a sudden shift with this year’s election.

Canton and Youngstown are among areas that have gradually moved their support from Democrat to Republican over the last eight years. That’s according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center, which showed double-digit drops in Democratic support in many middle-class areas across the country.

The study defined middle-class areas as those in which more than half of the adult population lives in a middle-income household. And in manufacturing areas like Youngstown, Republicans were more likely to have gained support. In this year’s election, Donald Trump won more than three-fourths of those manufacturing areas nationwide, a quarter of which supported Obama in 2008.

Meanwhile, Democrats held onto what Pew called a “loose ‘coalition’” of lower- and upper-income communities.