Why Obama Voters Defected

Lee Drutman's research for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group was featured in a Slate article about Obama-Trump voters: 

Two reports from the Voter Study Group, which conducted the survey, give a detailed look at these vote switchers. (You can learn more about the nonprofit survey here—what’s key is that its longitudinal nature allows researchers to draw deeper conclusions on the issues that motivated voters.) One, from George Washington University political scientist John Sides, looks at racial, religious, and cultural divides and how they shaped the 2016 election. The other, from political scientist Lee Drutman, takes a detailed look at those divides and places them in the context of the Democratic and Republican parties. Starting in different places, both Sides and Drutman conclude that questions of race, religion, and American identity were critical to the 2016 outcome, especially among Obama-to-Trump voters. That’s no surprise. What’s interesting is what the importance of identity says about Donald Trump’s campaign. Put simply, we tend to think that Trump succeeded despite his disorganized and haphazard campaign. But the Voter Study results indicate that Trump was a canny entrepreneur who perceived a need in the political marketplace and met it.