[The divisions reflected a persistent polarization that appeared
to be driven in part by voters’ strong feelings about the
provocative president. About two-thirds of all voters said their
decision was about Trump — either for or against.]
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AP VOTECAST: TRUMP, BIDEN COALITIONS SHOW RACE, CLASS DIVIDE  
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Josh Boak, Hannah Fingerhut
November 4, 2020
AP
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_ The divisions reflected a persistent polarization that appeared to
be driven in part by voters’ strong feelings about the provocative
president. About two-thirds of all voters said their decision was
about Trump — either for or against. _

Chester County election workers process mail-in and absentee ballots
for the 2020 general election in the United States at West Chester
University, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in West Chester, Pa. , AP
Photo/Matt Slocum

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans sorted themselves into two distinct
camps in the presidential election, exposing the clear and entrenched
partisan divisions that separate voters by gender, class and race.

Despite a once-in-a-century pandemic and a weakened economy, some 76%
of U.S. voters said they knew all along who they would support — and
they constituted the bulk of the supporters for both President Donald
Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, according to AP VoteCast,
an expansive survey of the voters nationwide.

The candidates’ supporters fell into familiar coalitions, with only
a few groups showing significant numbers of swing voters. The
divisions reflected a persistent polarization that appeared to be
driven in part by voters’ strong feelings about the provocative
president. About two-thirds of all voters said their decision was
about Trump — either for or against.

Biden amassed a sizable and diverse coalition of young, women,
college-educated, urban and Black voters, groups that powered his
party’s 2018 midterm victories. Some 38% of his support came from
voters of color.

Trump, meanwhile, marshaled his overwhelmingly white and rural
supporters to turn out voters in the places that anchored his victory
four years ago. He held on to 62% of white voters without a college
degree, despite Biden’s hopes of peeling off large numbers of them.
And in some competitive states, like Nevada and Florida, Trump ate
away at Biden’s support among Latinos.

MORE STORIES:

* – AP VoteCast: Voters favor Biden on virus, Trump on economy
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* – AP VoteCast: Texas voters sour on state of nation
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* – AP VoteCast: Voters split on virus, economy, even football
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The candidates were locked in a close and unsettled race Wednesday,
with election officials continuing to count votes in key
battlegrounds. Turnout for both parties appeared to be strong as
voters expressed anxiety about the country’s future. Six in 10
voters — including most Biden voters and about a quarter of Trump
voters — said the nation was on the wrong track.

AP VoteCast is a nationwide survey of more than 133,000 voters and
nonvoters conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University
of Chicago.

The two competing coalitions aligned behind different priorities for
the country, and had two diverging views on which candidate could
better address those worries. More voters — both nationwide and in
key battlegrounds — said the former vice president would be better
able to handle the coronavirus pandemic, the top concern for 41% of
voters.

They were voters like Mariah Foster, a 20-year-old server in a
restaurant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who cast her ballot for Biden.
Foster said she believed Trump “isn’t doing much” to contain the
spread of a virus that has claimed more than 230,000 American lives.
“We’re like nine months into COVID and it’s still getting worse,
not getting better.”

But Trump bested Biden on the question of who could better rebuild an
economy hurt by nearly 11 million job losses as momentum has faded for
a full and quick recovery. Twenty-eight percent of voters nationally
ranked the economy as the top priority.

Scott Cross, 60, a draftsman from Nashville, Tennessee, voted for
Trump and said the main issue for him was “the economy, the economy,
the economy.”

“I can’t think of a better guy, if the economy is tanking, than to
have him in there,” he said.

The contrast in top concerns drove much of the campaign. Biden said
the economy cannot return to its former strength so long as the
coronavirus persists. Trump argued that the economy should not be a
casualty of the disease and maintained, without evidence, that the
nation was “rounding the turn.”

Despite rising virus cases across the country, Trump voters echoed his
optimism. About 8 in 10 said their vote was in support of him, not in
opposition to Biden. They continued to clamor for a shake-up of the
political system and said they welcomed how Trump has transformed the
government.

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. voters were white and 55% of them backed
Trump. The president secured 81% of white evangelical Christians.
About half of men voted for him. Trump won 60% of voters living in
small towns and rural areas.

Nationwide, nearly 57% of college graduates backed Biden. So did 55%
of women. And 55% of voters under the age of 45. He won 65% of urban
voters and 54% of suburbanites.

Biden voters were far more concerned about racism in the U.S., after a
year of rising tensions, peaceful demonstrations and sometimes-violent
clashes over racial justice. Nearly all Biden voters called racism a
serious problem in U.S. society and in policing, including about 7 in
10 who called it “very” serious.

Voters in key battleground states shared anxieties about the virus and
its spread. The Associated Press declared Biden the winner in
Wisconsin, where 45% of voters said the pandemic was the top issue
facing the country, and 57% said it was not under control. About
two-thirds said the government should prioritize stopping its spread
even if that hurts the economy.

Full Coverage: Election 2020 [[link removed]]

About half of Wisconsin voters said that Biden would do a superior job
combating the virus, roughly the same as in Michigan and Pennsylvania,
two other battleground states. The AP on Wednesday declared Biden the
winner in Michigan. Trump had an edge in stewarding the economy, with
roughly half of voters in these states saying he would do better than
Biden.

Trump has sought to sow doubt about the new voting systems and the
legitimacy of the count, and claimed without evidence that some voters
would cheat. His campaign has announced that it will sue to stop the
vote counts in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The survey found that 3 in 10 voters were doubtful that their votes
would be accurately counted. Concerns about voting were somewhat
higher in Pennsylvania, where 36% were not confident the vote count
would be accurate.

_AP VOTECAST is a survey of the American electorate conducted by NORC
at the University of Chicago for Fox News, NPR, PBS NewsHour,
Univision News, USA Today Network, The Wall Street Journal and The
Associated Press. The survey of 110,485 voters was conducted for eight
days, concluding as polls closed. Interviews were conducted in English
and Spanish. The survey combines a random sample of registered voters
drawn from state voter files; self-identified registered voters using
NORC’s probability based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be
representative of the U.S. population; and self-identified registered
voters selected from nonprobability online panels. The margin of
sampling error for voters is estimated to be plus or minus 0.4
percentage points. Find more details about AP VoteCast’s methodology
at [link removed] [[link removed]]._

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