The New Hispanic Diploma Divide

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Education polarization comes for us all. Back in April, I warned of a historically large education gap among white voters, a trend years in the making. Until recently, however, little attention was paid to education gaps among non-white groups—and this fall the Hispanic diploma divide is poised to widen from a crack to a chasm. 

Prior to 2020, non-college Hispanic voters were actually more Democratic than their college-educated peers. In 2012, Barack Obama carried degree-holding Hispanics by 30 points and those without degrees by a whopping 43 points. This divide—a reverse of what we’re accustomed to seeing today—persisted in 2016, before the two groups converged in 2020. Largely lost in the din of Biden’s poor overall performance with Hispanics was the especially pronounced rightward shift among working-class Hispanics. (The Liberal Patriot’s own Ruy Teixeira did cover this last month, however.) 

Fresh data from the Survey Center on American Life offers a rare opportunity to split Hispanic voters by their education level—and what a split indeed. Biden leads Trump by 24 points with degree-holding Hispanics, but only by 2 points with non-college Hispanics. Trump is at 41 percent with the latter group, already outpacing his last performance. Biden, meanwhile, is at just 43 percent, seventeen points shy of his 2020 mark. 

Thirteen percent of working-class Hispanics remain undecided, well more than the 7 percent of college Hispanics or non-college whites. In the context of Biden’s low vote share, the high number of undecideds indicates that many working-class Hispanics who backed Biden in 2020 are on the fence this time around. They don’t like Biden, but aren’t sold on Trump either. 

There is little to suggest that these voters will suddenly come flocking back to Biden before November. Forty-nine percent of working-class Hispanics say the country will get “somewhat or much worse” if Biden is reelected. A nearly equivalent 48 percent say the same of Trump. Just 40 percent have a “somewhat or very favorable” opinion of Biden, just a hair more than the 38 percent Trump earns. Reliable Biden voters they are not. Many may simply choose to sit out the election entirely—a potentially welcome outcome for Democrats given Biden’s “high-engagement” advantage.

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Non-college Latinos will represent about 7 percent of the 2024 electorate, considerably more than the 3 percent share of college-educated Latinos. Holding all else equal from 2020, if Latinos vote Biden +15 and turnout drops a couple of points, Trump would flip Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Wisconsin—enough for an Electoral College win. Swings among white voters, of course, could erase Trump’s gains. But the rightward shift, and indecision, of working-class Hispanics should worry the Biden campaign. 

Education polarization and its resulting turnout disparities have helped Democrats time and time again since 2020. The script might flip in November.