Democrats’ fate depends on winning enough non-college-educated voters in swing states. They aren’t trying hard enough

Kamala Harris is doing a lot of things right that recent Democratic campaigns got wrong. She took a chance on Tim Waltz – coach, solider, snow-shoveling-helper – because she hoped to build bridges to the non-college grads who have abandoned Democrats in large numbers.

Nearly 60% of Bill Clinton’s supporters were white people without degrees; only 27% of Joe Biden’s were. Non-college white people are the largest voting bloc in the country, so if Democrats lose them overwhelmingly, they need the immense support and turnout among people of color to win. Instead, Democrats have lost ground among non-white voters. Their advantage among Latinos has fallen from 39 points in 2016 to 19 points today; that same New York Times/Siena poll found the vice-president down 12 points among African Americans compared with Biden in 2020.

Joan C Williams is Sullivan Professor and the current director of the Equality Action Center at UC Law San Francisco and the author of the 2017 book White Working Class. Her next book, OUTCLASSED: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back, will be released in May 2025