Rothwell found that pro-Trump folks tend to live in neighborhoods that are super white—sometimes, whiter than the wider regions they live in. “People living in zip codes with disproportionately high shares of white residents are significantly and robustly more likely to view Trump favorably,” Rothwell writes in the paper. . .
What these findings mean, Rothwell concludes, is that support for Trump’s nativism has a lot to do with ignorance about immigrants and minorities, which in turn has a lot to do with residential segregation. “Limited interactions with racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and college graduates may contribute to prejudicial stereotypes, political and cultural misunderstandings, and a general fear of rejection and not-belonging,” he writes.
–Tanvi Misra, on research by Gallup economist Jonathan Rothwell, “Racial Segregation, Not Economic Hardship, Explains Trump” on CityLab
