Kerry Really Lost the White Working Class | by Ben
The Regular has a very interesting post summarizing some research into the 2004 presidental election:
Ruy runs the numbers on the crucial swing constituency of white working-class voters, and defends his definitions against criticsm from Chris Bowers of MyDD. At issue is whether the primary factor in defining the white working class, for purposes of demographic analysis, should be lack of a college degree (Teixeira's contention) or a certain income level (Bowers' preference). Ruy cites his earlier work in a book on this question, and sticks to his guns: "And among non-college-educated whites with $50,000-$75,000 in household income, Bush beat Kerry by a shocking 41 points (70-29), while leading by only 5 points (52-47) among college-educated whites at the same income level."
Links to the original articles on The Regular site.
In a related article, Slate talks about why the working class has been turning conservative. The writer dismisses a number of theories, including the one that says that conservatism is a pathology.