Editing Democratic Party (United States) (section)

=== Education ===
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 | image1 = College white vote by state.jpg 
 | alt1 = College White vote in the 2020 presidential election by state 
 | image2 = Non-College White vote by state.jpg
 | alt2 = Non-college White vote in the 2020 presidential election by state
 | footer = {{center|'''Top and bottom:''' College White vote and Non-college White vote in the [[2020 United States presidential election|2020 presidential election]] by state.<ref name="White Vote and Educational Polarization">{{Cite web|url=https://split-ticket.org/2022/01/03/the-white-vote-and-educational-polarization/|title=The White Vote and Educational Polarization|first1=Lakshya|last1=Jain|date=January 3, 2022|access-date=January 4, 2025|website=Split Ticket}}</ref>}}
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In the 2020 presidential election, college-educated White voters in all 50 states voted more Democratic than non-college White voters, as displayed in the two maps. After controlling for education, there still remain huge variations by state and region. White voters with college degrees remain strongly Republican in the Southern United States.<ref name="White Vote and Educational Polarization"/> 

Of the 19 states and the District of Columbia won by Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, all except [[New Mexico]] had above-average educational attainment.<ref name = "CensusData">{{cite web |title=EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT |url=https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=S1501&g=0100000US%240400000&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S1501&moe=false&tp=false |publisher=U.S. Census Bureau |access-date=18 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220919003628/https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=S1501&g=0100000US%240400000&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S1501&moe=false&tp=false |archive-date=19 September 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vox.com/politics/390108/working-class-definition-voters-2024|title=What does "working class" even mean?|quote=The criticism that Democrats left America’s working class behind surged after the 2024 election. Here’s why the term is so hard to define — and why that maters.|website=Vox|date=December 9, 2024|access-date=December 9, 2024}}</ref> Harris also became the first Democratic presidential nominee to receive more support from high-income Americans than low-income Americans, because higher educational attainment is strongly correlated with higher income.<ref name=":0"/> By education, Harris lost voters with [[High school in the United States|High school or less]] 36-62%, some college education 47-51%, and an [[Associate degree]] 41-57%. Harris won voters with a Bachelor's degree 53-45% and voters with	a [[Postgraduate education|graduate degree]] 59-38%.<ref name="2024 Exit poll">{{cite news|date=November 6, 2024|title=Exit poll results 2024|url=https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0|access-date=November 6, 2024|publisher=CNN}}</ref>

According to a Gallup poll in November 2024, unionization rates were positively correlated to increased educational attainment and higher income. In particular, 15% of those with graduate degrees, 8% with bachelor's degrees, 9% with some college, and 5% with high school or less were unionized. Also, 11% of those with household incomes of $100,000 or more, 7% of those with $40,000 to $99,999, and 3% with less than $40,000 were unionized. Also only 6% of those in the private sector were unionized, compared to 28% of government employees.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://news.gallup.com/poll/265958/percentage-workers-union-members.aspx#:~:text=The%20more%20educated%20an%20employee,likely%20to%20be%20union%20members.|title=What Percentage of U.S. Workers Belong to a Labor Union?|date=November 20, 2024|website=Gallup|access-date=December 13, 2024}}</ref>

Many Democrats without college degrees differ from liberals in their more socially moderate views, and are more likely to belong to an ethnic minority.<ref name="dropouts">{{Cite web|url=https://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6840037/white-high-school-dropouts-have-more-wealth-than-black-and-hispanic|title=White high school dropouts are wealthier than Black or Latino college graduates|first1=Danielle|last1=Kurtzleben|date=September 24, 2014|website=Vox}}</ref><ref name="different worlds">{{cite news|url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/12/politics/republicans-democrats-different-worlds/index.html|title=Republicans and Democrats increasingly really do occupy different worlds|last=Brownstein|first=Ronald|work=CNN|access-date=October 24, 2018|archive-date=October 24, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181024113248/https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/12/politics/republicans-democrats-different-worlds/index.html|url-status=live|quote=On the one hand, non-college whites almost always expressed more conservative views than did either non-whites or whites with a college degree living in the same kind of geographic area.}}</ref><ref name="Teixeira-2022">{{Cite web |last=Teixeira |first=Ruy |author-link=Ruy Teixeira |date=November 6, 2022 |title=Democrats' Long Goodbye to the Working Class |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/democrats-long-goodbye-to-the-working-class/672016/ |access-date=November 8, 2022 |website=[[The Atlantic]] |language=en |quote=As we move into the endgame of the 2022 election, the Democrats face a familiar problem. America's historical party of the working class keeps losing working-class support. And not just among White voters. Not only has the emerging Democratic majority I once predicted failed to materialize, but many of the non-White voters who were supposed to deliver it are instead voting for Republicans... From 2012 to 2020, the Democrats not only saw their support among White working-class voters — those without college degrees — crater, they also saw their advantage among non-White working-class voters fall by 18 points. And between 2016 and 2020 alone, the Democratic advantage among Hispanic voters declined by 16 points, overwhelmingly driven by the defection of working-class voters. In contrast, Democrats' advantage among White college-educated voters improved by 16 points from 2012 to 2020, an edge that delivered Joe Biden the White House. |archive-date=January 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230107212010/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/democrats-long-goodbye-to-the-working-class/672016/ |url-status=live }}</ref> White voters with college degrees are more likely to live in urban areas.<ref name="different worlds"/>

In the [[2020 United States presidential election]], Joe Biden won white voters with a college degree 51-48%, while winning college graduates as a whole 55-43%. Biden became the first Democratic president to win a majority of white voters with college degrees since 1964.<ref>{{Cite news|title=National Results 2020 President exit polls.|url=https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/national-results|access-date=2020-12-04|work=[[CNN]]|language=en}}</ref><ref name="nymag.com"/><ref name="nytimes.com"/> In the [[2024 United States presidential election]], Kamala Harris won white voters with college degrees 52-45%, becoming the first Democratic presidential nominee to lose a presidential election despite winning a majority of white voters with college degrees.<ref name="Lost Their">{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/upshot/democrats-trump-working-class.html|title=How Democrats Lost Their Base and their Message|quote=Donald Trump's populist pitch bumped Democrats off their traditional place in American politics.|website=The New York Times|first1=Nate|last1=Cohn|date=November 25, 2024|access-date=November 25, 2024}}</ref>

The Democratic Party has steadily increased the percentage of votes it receives from voters with college degrees since the 1970s, while the [[educational attainment in the United States|educational attainment]] of the United States has steadily increased.<ref name="Polarized by Degrees"/><ref name="Nate Silver"/> Voters with college degrees as a whole were a Republican-voting group until the 1990s. Despite winning in a landslide 61-39% in [[1964 United States presidential election|1964]], Democratic president [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] only narrowly won a majority of voters with college degrees 52-48%.<ref>{{cite news |title=Election Polls -- Vote by Groups, 1960-1964 |url=http://www.gallup.com/poll/9454/Election-Polls-Vote-Groups-19601964.aspx |website=[[Gallup (company)|Gallup]] |access-date=June 30, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726155334/http://www.gallup.com/poll/9454/Election-Polls-Vote-Groups-19601964.aspx |archive-date=July 26, 2011}}</ref> In [[1976 United States presidential election|1976]], Democrat [[Jimmy Carter]] narrowly won while losing voters with college degrees 43-55%.<ref name="1976 Presidential Election Data">{{cite web|url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=1976&datatype=national&def=1&f=0&off=0&elect=0|title=1976 Presidential General Election Data - National|access-date=March 18, 2013|archive-date=August 14, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814021625/https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=1976&datatype=national&def=1&f=0&off=0&elect=0|url-status=live}}</ref>