![]() It's clear that this was a blip because by the 1980s, Republicans were back to winning 70 percent of the wealthiest Americans. ![]() Lyndon Johnson, by contrast, was a moderate. Most establishment Republicans considered him crazy. ![]() Republicans nominated the far-right conservative Barry Goldwater. The 1964 election is pretty easy to explain. But there were three exceptions: the elections of 1964, 1992, and 2012. This much we know: Very rich Americans have voted decidedly Republican for decades. A family income of $220,000 puts you in the top 4 percent in 2012. I use the top 4 percent because that the granularity that the data allows. The chart below is built from American National Election Studies data. But before getting to the future, let's start with the past. My strong hunch is that for the foreseeable future, the wealthiest Americans will prefer Democrats. I'm pretty convinced that it does mark a phase shift. So was 2012 a blip, like 1964? Or was 2012 the start of a phase shift, in which the Democrats replace the Republicans as the preferred party of the wealthiest Americans? Before that, it hadn't happened since possibly the 1880s (scientific survey data for back then is, sadly, nonexistent). The wealthiest 4 percent of voting-age Americans, by a narrow plurality, supported a Democrat for president.
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