The effect of Trump’s economic policies on his base, explained

This appeared in The Millennial Source

President Donald Trump’s first term economic agenda has been dominated by a trade war with China, massive tax cuts and, now, the response to the coronavirus pandemic. These events have had a profound impact on the president’s base.

As the end of his first presidential term grows closer, with the likelihood of a second increasingly uncertain given recent polling, how far President Donald Trump’s economics have helped or hurt his base can be brought more into focus.

Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 ran on a message of “draining the swamp,” appealing to Americans who felt, for a variety of reasons, politically and economically disadvantaged.

Leveraging his carefully cultivated business personality, then-candidate Trump dominated the headlines throughout the campaign with his promises to build a wall along the Mexican border and end the national debt within eight years. Trump eventually succeeded in mobilizing a traditionally apathetic electorate by getting white voters without college degrees to turn out in large numbers to vote for him.

This last group — non-college white voters — makes up a substantial portion of Trump’s base, both in 2016 and in the run-up to the 2020 election.