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The NBC News poll shows how much the Republican Party has changed — demographically — over the last 10 years, as we head into the 2024 presidential cycle.
According to the combined NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls of 2012, 48% of self-described Republicans were non-college whites, compared with 40% who were college whites.
Ten years later, however, the merged NBC News polls found non-college whites had jumped to 62% of self-described Republicans, while college whites had fallen to 25%.
(Note: The WSJ ended its partnership on the poll after the 2020 election.)
By comparison, the composition of the Democratic Party hasn’t changed as much over the last 10 years, per the poll.
The education difference has also played out at the ballot box.
In the 2022 midterms, for example, white college graduates narrowly voted for Democrats over Republicans, 50%-47%, according to the national exit poll.
But whites without college degree broke heavily for the GOP, 66%-32%.