Donald Trump loves “the poorly educated.” And they love him back.
The strangest line from Donald Trump’s victory speech: “I love the poorly educated”
Libby Nelson was Vox’s editorial director, politics and policy, leading coverage of how government action and inaction shape American life. Libby has more than a decade of policy journalism experience, including at Inside Higher Ed and Politico. She joined Vox in 2014.
In his victory speech after clinching the Nevada caucuses, Trump rattled off the groups he won in the Silver State. But his supporters without a college degree got a special note of praise:
“We won the evangelicals,” Trump said. “We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated — I love the poorly educated. We’re the smartest people, we’re the most loyal people.”
It’s bizarre that Trump, who has bragged about his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, is now lumping himself in with the “poorly educated.”
But it’s true that the more educated Republicans are, the less likely they are to warm up to him. According to exit polls, Trump won Nevada voters without a high school degree with 57 percent of the vote. He won voters with some college with 49 percent of the vote. He won college graduates with 42 percent of the vote. And among those with a postgraduate degree, his share was only 37 percent.
