I've had several posts questioning the claim Donald Trump had a strong connection to the public (this one, for example). But what if we focus on less educated people (often miscalled the "working class"), who did vote for him in large numbers? A Pew survey in October 2016 asked if Donald Trump would be a great, good, average, poor, or terrible president if elected, and asked the same question about Hillary Clinton. The averages by education (some college or less vs. degree or more), with great=5....terrible=1.
No degree degree
Trump 2.49 2.09
Clinton 2.56 3.03
There was little difference among people without a college degree, but Clinton rated a little higher. She was much higher among people with a college degree.
The same question had also been asked in a survey from April 2011, which asked about some people who were being mentioned as possible candidates for the Republican nomination. That group happened to include Donald Trump.
No degree degree
Trump 2.56 2.10
Romney 3.08 3.04
Palin 2.51 2.10
Huckabee 3.20 2.80
Ron Paul 2.82 2.61
Gingrich 2.68 2.46
Bachmann 2.66 2.38
Despite everything that happened between April 2011 and October 2016, the average assessment of Donald Trump among both educational groups was almost the same at the two times. All of the potential Republican candidates got higher ratings from less educated people--the difference was small for Romney, but large for Trump and several others.\
\In December 2007, the same question was asked about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
No degree degree
Obama 3.27 3.44
Clinton 3.14 3.08
Clinton's rating among college graduates was about the same in 2007 and 2016, but her rating among people without a college degree dropped substantially. What happened? My first thought is that the accumulation of scandals or quasi-scandals might have had more impact on less educated voters, who might pay more attention to personality than ideology. I also have the impression that her association with Bill Clinton's administration, a period of declining unemployment and even wage growth, counted for more in 2008 than in 2016, partly because it was more recent then and partly because her time as Secretary of State intervened.
But the overall point is that Trump's success in 2016 was more about the weakness of the opposition than about any positive appeal. Of course, he had a lot enthusiastic supporters--in a country of 320 million, even a small minority can be a lot of people. But the public as a whole, and even the less educated part of the public as a whole, were not that enthusiastic.
[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]
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