BYRON YORK: President Trump and his voters, by the numbers

Byron York Andrews McMeel Syndication September 11, 2026 - 12:49 am The Wall Street Journal points to evidence that, despite his challenges, President Donald Trump has delivered economic gains to the voters whose support secured his 2024 victory. The Journal’s header and synopsis state: “Americans Without College Degrees Are Having One of the Best Job Markets successful Years; Unemployment among younger workers who didn’t spell to assemblage has seldom been little successful caller decades. It is the other communicative for assemblage grads.” The article draws on research from the Burning Glass Institute. Analysts found that “the unemployment complaint for workers ages 22 to 34 who ne'er graduated from college” stands at one of its lowest points in the past 20 years. In contrast, workers holding a bachelor’s degree or higher face mounting difficulty securing good jobs. As the report notes, “Just as occupation hunters without degrees are having 1 of their champion runs, those with assemblage educations are having 1 of their worst.” Historically, the job‑market trajectories for degreed and non‑degreed workers moved in tandem. Today they have split: those without degrees are seeing improvement, while degree‑holders encounter more obstacles. Having a degree still carries value. The Journal reports that workers aged 25‑54 with a college degree averaged a 2.7 percent unemployment rate over the last year. Those with some college but no degree registered 3.6 percent, and individuals with no college experience posted 4.7 percent. The takeaway is not that lacking a degree is preferable, but that the economic circumstances of non‑college‑educated workers are improving more rapidly than those of their degreed peers. Politically, a core element of Trump’s rise and durability has been the backing of voters without college degrees. His success has fueled countless analyses of the “educational divide” in American politics, where educational attainment increasingly predicts partisan preference. The consistent finding is that non‑degree voters tend to support Trump, while degree‑holding voters lean toward his opponents. Exit polls from the 2024 election illustrate the pattern. Among respondents who never attended college, Trump captured 62 percent of the vote. Those with some college but no degree gave him 51 percent, and associate‑degree holders backed him at 57 percent. Combined, Trump won 56 percent of the vote from voters lacking a bachelor’s degree—a group that constituted well over half of the electorate. On the opposite side, then‑Vice President Kamala Harris secured 53 percent of the vote from bachelor’s‑degree holders and 59 percent from those with advanced degrees. Trump’s appeal to less‑educated voters was evident from the outset of his political career, beginning with the Iowa caucuses in January 2016. A PBS headline observed, “Trump overwhelmingly leads rivals successful enactment from less-educ