A review of Patrick Ruffini’s Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP

Donald Trump’s success in the 2024 election is largely due to previously reliable Democratic voters shifting their votes away from Kamala Harris and to Trump. This was not just the headline-grabbing groups like young black men. It included much larger groups like Hispanic women and practically everyone who did not go to college.

None of this was a surprise to Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini. He detailed these trends in his 2023 book, Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP. According to Ruffini, Trump is the beneficiary of long-term trends that can advantage Republican candidates at all levels for many years to come if Republicans embrace these voters.

To be sure, Trump is a charismatic personality who easily attracts followers. Not just any political candidate could capture and excite these disillusioned voters who are looking for a political home. Trump is the right messenger for the times. But Ruffini clearly demonstrates that many in the Trump coalition are traditional Democratic voters who simply cannot support the policies the Democratic Party is offering. 

He describes how the Democratic Party leadership lost touch with its base voters and how Trump and the Republicans attracted them. The 2016 and 2024 election results are not just Trump events. They are the germination of long-term historical forces moving toward a new populism.

Ruffini is the co-founder of Echelon Insights, a polling, analytics, and digital-messaging consulting firm. The analysis presented in Party of the People is based upon a variety of data sources, including Ruffini’s own polling, U.S. Census data, exit polling, Pew research, and much more.

He makes four key points that lead to the conclusion that many traditional Democratic voters have become unmoored from the party and are looking for a home. The opportunity is ripe for a more populist-leaning GOP to build and sustain a long-term winning coalition.

Demographics Determine the Future 

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, books were written arguing that demographic trends would put Democrats in charge of U.S. politics for many decades. Hispanics were a fast-growing population. They and younger voters of all backgrounds were trending Democratic. As a result, Democrats would hold the presidency and Congress for the foreseeable future. 

This flawed logic was based on the idea that voting trends among various populations remain the same. That is, of course, never true. 

Using early 20th-century Italian and Irish immigration as historical examples, Ruffini describes how these voting blocs moved from solidly Democratic into the Republican column. Then he shows how the same is happening with Hispanics, Asians, and blacks today.

It is important to note that individuals vote, not groups. However, demographers and pollsters can identify trends within various groupings. The value of Ruffini’s analysis is that he does not focus on which groups voted for Trump. Rather, he focuses on the direction various groups are trending over time. For example, Biden carried Hispanic women by 40 points, but Harris only won them by 21 points. This was a significant gain in total votes for Trump.

College Graduates 

These historical trends are important, but that is not where the book begins. Ruffini devotes much of the first chapter to college-educated white voters. Dividing voters into college graduates and non-graduates, he argues that the education gap is the most important political gap these days. 

The trend is most pronounced among white voters. Hispanic, Asian, and black voting trends are less affected by who graduated from college.

White college graduates made up 29 percent of the 2020 electorate. That group voted 12 points more for Biden than they did for Obama in 2012. Whites without a college degree made up 43 percent of voters in 2020. They voted 8 points more for Trump than they had for Romney. That is a 20-point difference in the political shift between whites with college and whites without college in just eight years. All non-whites together were 29 percent of voters. They voted 12 points more for Trump than for Romney. 

College education has replaced income as the great political separator. Ruffini divides the 2020 electorate into those with a family income of less than $80,000 and those with more. Non-college whites in these income groups voted 30 and 31 points in favor of Trump. College-educated whites voted 13 and 15 points in favor of Biden. 

More than simply a useful identifier for an important voting trend, college is actually the cause of the trend. The policies that are pushing voters away from the Democratic Party are things like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), open immigration, and income redistribution. These are concepts promoted by college faculty.  

The white college graduates who lead the Democratic Party are pushing extreme policies that their base voters do not support. In fact, many working-class people see these policies as opposed to their economic and social interests. As a result, the Democratic Party is no longer the “party of the working man.” (Sherrod Brown, a former U.S. Senator from Ohio, made a similar argument recently in The New Republic.)

The problem for Democrats is that their leadership—their decision makers—are out of touch with many of their voters. As a result, their policies are counter to the thinking of average Americans. 

Latino or Latinx

In the chapter on Hispanic voting trends, Ruffini demonstrates the political differences between recent arrivals and those who have been in the U.S. for generations. Like the Italians and Irish before them, Hispanics who have been in the country for years are experiencing “regression toward the mean.” In plainer English, they are becoming less of a specialized ethnic voting bloc. They are voting more like non-college working-class voters overall. 

This newfound independence is causing much of the Hispanic population to shift away from a public assistance mentality and toward more market-oriented economics. Many feel they came to the U.S. legally and others should as well. They prefer merit-based hiring and promotion over racial preferences. They want to keep what they earn and not pay it out in taxes. They are offended by the white attempt to distort their traditional language by making it gender-neutral. As a result, Democrats have lost their grip on this bloc, and Republican candidates are making remarkable gains among these voters. 

Republicans are not often winning majorities in the Hispanic community, but there is a decades-long trend of more and more Hispanics voting Republican. Keep in mind, there is a difference between all Hispanic residents in the country and Hispanic voters. Voters are U.S. citizens who have been in the country for many years and are registered to vote. 

Wavering Blacks

The chapter on black voters shows similar shifts. Although these trends are less pronounced, they do move the electoral margins, particularly in some swing districts and states. Blacks are about 12 percent of the population nationally. In the past, they have voted Democratic as a strong bloc. Generally, Democratic candidates receive 90 percent or more of the black vote. Simply moving this group from 90 percent to 85 percent shifts the election outcome by .7 percent. Of course, in heavily concentrated black neighborhoods, it can be much larger. That can be thousands of votes and can change the outcome in a close race.  

Democrats are losing these voters on economic and social issues. In fact, it is a breakdown of identity politics that is freeing up these voters. Previously, they felt a lot of social pressure to stay in the voting bloc. That social pressure is beginning to break down.

The one group of black voters who are moving in the opposite direction of this trend are college-educated black women. In recent elections, they are moving ever closer to the Democratic Party. Black men, on the other hand, moved 25 points toward Trump between 2020 and 2024.

Overall, black voters are more progressive in their thinking than other voters. Only about 30 percent hold conservative-leaning ideals. However, Ruffini finds that black voters in general are less ideologically driven. The social pressure of identity politics is holding this voting bloc together. Republicans would not win the black vote as a whole if policy issues became the driving force in their voting decisions, but they would make significant gains in the overall vote totals. This demonstrates the opportunity for the GOP if they can permanently bring these voters into the Republican coalition.

Policy Prescriptions

The multiracial populist coalition that Ruffini describes is different from the Reagan coalition of 40 years ago. As a result, he believes a different set of policies is needed to hold them in the GOP.

First, he recommends opening many white-collar jobs to applicants without a college degree. Many companies are beginning to recognize that they need technical skills that can be learned through specialized certification programs and apprenticeships rather than college degrees. This has the advantage of lower education cost, less student debt, and fewer years in training. Requiring a bachelor's degree creates an unnecessary class-based barrier to entry. The government could lead the way by changing its hiring practices and by encouraging the private sector to do the same. 

Criminal justice reform is another way to open employment for many who are barred from productive pursuits. Sentencing designed for restoration and productivity can reduce recidivism, reduce taxpayer costs, and make families more self-sufficient.

These go hand-in-hand with licensing reform. Too many professions use licensing requirements to stifle innovation and competition. They create harsh and expensive barriers. Government can reduce licensing requirements and other forms of regulation, making it easier for entrepreneurs to get a start.

Another set of policy recommendations revolves around creating an ownership society. Ideas include giving individuals more ownership control of their Social Security benefits and encouraging homeownership. 

Ruffini also has a list of policy don’ts. Chief among them is don’t raise taxes on working-class voters. 

If Republicans want to hold their newfound populist coalition together, they must orient their policy priorities around the politics of aspiration. Working-class voters need to see how their future is going to improve if they support GOP candidates.

Long-term Trends 

Ruffini makes a convincing case that an enduring center-right populist coalition is possible. The historical trends of the early to mid-1900s show that as newly arrived ethnic groups become more integrated into American society, they move away from identity politics and toward policy-oriented voting. Recent trends since the early 2000s show Hispanic citizens who are registered to vote following this same pattern. Working-class black voters have been slower to abandon identity politics, but the trend is starting to emerge there as well.  

This historical phenomenon is creating an opportunity for political candidates to appeal to a new group of swing voters in key states and districts. Donald Trump understands how to appeal to these voters. On the other hand, Democrats are pressing policies that drive them away. Since the 2024 election, several liberal commentators have written short articles that parrot what Ruffini published before the election. One such article by Sasha Stone, who describes herself as “a former Democrat and Leftist who escaped the bubble,” is entitled “Please, Democrats, Keep Losing Elections.” These voters are unmoored from their party. Promoting policies that appeal to their aspirations could build a new long-term conservative populist coalition.

Takeaways

The key takeaways from Ruffini’s book can be summed up in a few points.

1. Woke college is indoctrinating some students into a point of view that is antithetical to working-class values.
2. The white college graduates who have taken control of the Democratic Party’s institutions are moving the party in a direction that its working-class voters cannot support.
3. This created an opening for a charismatic leader like Donald Trump to move those alienated voters into a new GOP populist coalition.
4. These shifts are the culmination of long-term trends and not a short-term aberration. They present an opportunity for all GOP candidates if the party continues to appeal to issues that resonate with the working class.

Of course, Republicans could make the same mistake that Democrats made a few years ago. They could assume that current voting patterns will continue forever and project Republican wins for generations. To avoid this fallacy, conservatives need to focus their attention and their policies on the values and aspirations of the working class. With the right policies and the right leaders, the GOP can build an enduring conservative populist coalition.