US voters sharply separated by gender, race and education level, survey says

Americans sorted themselves into two distinct camps for the presidential election, exposing the clear and entrenched partisan divisions that separate voters by gender, class and race, an Associated Press survey says.

Some 76% of US voters say they knew all along who they would support — and they constituted the bulk of the supporters for both Trump and Biden, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of the voters nationwide.

The candidates’ supporters fall into familiar coalitions, with only a few groups showing significant numbers of swing voters. The divisions reflect a persistent polarization that appears to be driven in part by voters’ strong feelings about the provocative president. About two-thirds of all voters say 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 comes 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.

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.