the 2016 election not only altered the political parties<u+2019> hold on the electoral college map. it altered the parties themselves. women constitute a larger share of the democratic party, based on votes cast for hillary clinton. the proportion of wealthier americans and those with advanced college degrees also expanded, compared with the 2012 election. men make up a bigger proportion of the republican party, based on votes that president-elect donald trump received, as do voters with some college experience but no four-year degree. many of those voters have two-year associate degrees that provide an entry into many types of skilled labor. the picture of the two parties comes from exit polls conducted during the past two elections. those polls show whether mr. trump or mrs. clinton won a particular voter group. white voters without a four-year college degree , commonly called working-class whites, favored mr. trump by 39 percentage points, one reason that he won wisconsin, ohio and pennsylvania, states where those voters are plentiful. in addition, the polls show the makeup of each political party<u+2014>what share of its members come from which voter groups. under mr. trump, for example, republicans drew almost half their presidential votes<u+2014>some 48%<u+2014>from working-class whites. mrs. clinton, by contrast, drew only 20% of her votes from this group. the figures give a sense of how reliant mr. trump was on working-class whites, as well the size of the task his party faces in broadening beyond that core group of voters. the numbers further bolster the view that working-class whites, once a pillar of the democratic coalition, have largely abandoned mrs. clinton<u+2019>s party . sen. bernie sanders of vermont, who challenged mrs. clinton for the democratic nomination, underscored the challenge this week when he wrote on the website medium : <u+201c>yes, we need more candidates of diversity, but we also need candidates<u+2014>no matter what race or gender<u+2014>to be fighters for the working class and stand up to the corporate powers who have so much power over our economic lives.<u+201d> education is a significant dividing line between the two parties, with democrats drawing more of their members from the ranks of those with four-year college degrees and republicans relying on those with less educational attainment. in 2012, voters with only a high-school diploma or some college experience made up the same share of each party<u+2019>s presidential vote<u+2014>about 53%. this year, democrats relied far less on the votes of people without college degrees, while republicans relied on them more. those voters fell 8 percentage points as a share of the democratic presidential vote and rose two points as a share of the gop<u+2019>s tally. voters with postgraduate degrees now make up a much larger share of the democratic party<u+2014>some 22%<u+2014>than of the gop, accounting for 14% of the party<u+2019>s presidential vote. with the gop relying more heavily on white voters without four-year degrees, the party depends on a group that is shrinking over time, said william frey, a demographer with the brookings institution. republicans, he said, <u+201c>are homing in on this declining base. but it did very well for them in this election. they<u+2019>ve obviously won these states that have those demographics in spades.<u+201d> "whether it<u+2019>s a successful long-term strategy, though, is very much open to question,<u+2019><u+2019> given that those voters decline each election as a share of the electorate, he added. both parties now count similar shares of college-educated whites in their voter coalition, but that is due to a diverging trend. those voters rose 5 percentage points as a share of the democratic coalition and declined four points as a share of the gop since 2012. both parties saw an increase in the percentage of their voters with family income above $100,000. but the increase was particularly large within the democratic coalition. one-third of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s votes came from families in that income bracket, up 9 percentage points from 2012. republicans rely on older voters more than democrats do . some 62% of mr. trump<u+2019>s voters were age 45 or older, compared with about half of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s voters. only 15% of gop presidential voters were under age 30, compared with 22% of democratic voters. both parties relied a bit less on white voters than in 2012, with hispanic and asian voters rising slightly as a share of each party<u+2019>s coalition. that result is in keeping with the long-term decline of white voters and the rise of minorities in the electorate. it also reflects the fact that mr. trump, according to exit polls, drew a slightly larger share of hispanic voters than did the gop nominee in 2012.
vote breakdowns show how parties changed with trump, clinton at top of ticket  - wsj
noauthor