Trump Doesn’t Have A Monopoly On Intolerant Supporters ~538

Many of Donald Trump’s supporters are intolerant — racist, sexist and xenophobic. Indeed, some high-profile work has highlighted Trump’s populism and his appeal to less-educated authoritarians — a potent witch’s brew challenging democratic norms. And other analyses have focused on the specific targets of Trump supporters’ anti-democratic attitudes – especially, but not solely, Muslims, immigrants and black Americans.

Attention to the treatment of these minority groups is certainly warranted and important, but focusing only on Trump overlooks a crucial point: These are not the only groups that many people dislike, and intolerance is not concentrated among Trump supporters.

The nearly unequivocal story is that Trump supporters are no different from others, including Clinton and Sanders supporters.2 The one clear exception is supporters of John Kasich (~7 percent of the sample), who are demonstrably more tolerant than Trump’s. Kasich’s supporters are distinctive because 30 percent of them in this poll are self-identified Democrats, but also because the majority of them (54 percent) will not vote for Trump if he is the nominee – just over a quarter will peel off and vote for Clinton and the other quarter claim they will not vote. Kasich support appears effectively to be a protest against Trump by people who wish a restoration of good democratic order.