The best predictor of Trump support isn't income, education, or age. It's authoritarianism.
In the five days leading up to the South Carolina Republican primary I fielded a survey of 358 likely voters, hoping to better understand who supports Donald Trump, why, and what it may mean for the Republican presidential nominating contest.
What I found is a trend that has been widely overlooked. A voter’s gender, education, age, ideology, party identification, income, and race simply had no statistical bearing on whether someone supported Trump. Neither, despite predictions to the contrary, did evangelicalism.
Here is what did: authoritarianism, by which I mean Americans’ inclination to authoritarian behavior. When political scientists use the term authoritarianism, we are not talking about dictatorships but about a worldview. People who score high on the authoritarian scale value conformity and order, protect social norms, and are wary of outsiders. And when authoritarians feel threatened, they support aggressive leaders and policies.
Authoritarianism and a hybrid variable that links authoritarianism with a personal fear of terrorism were the only two variables that predicted, with statistical significance, support for Trump.
Put simply, Trump won South Carolina because of the overwhelming, unyielding support of authoritarian voters. This chart shows the predicted relationship between authoritarianism and support for Trump. It is statistically and substantively significant — and, as you can see from the upward plot of the line, stunning.
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Originally Posted by Swordsmyth
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