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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Lloyd Green

Butler by Salena Zito review – how Trump won America’s heartland

a man is rushed offstage
Donald Trump is rushed off stage after surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The Democrats’ famed blue wall is more the stuff of nostalgia than reality. On election day 2024, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump for the second time in three elections. Barack Obama’s upstairs-downstairs coalition lies in ruins, as Democrats struggle to connect with working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines.

Last November, Trump came within just three points of winning a majority of Latino voters. Such Americans walked away from their presumed political home – in droves. A Trump endorsement by Roberto Clemente Jr, son of the late Pittsburgh Pirates baseball star, was a harbinger. Likewise, Trump posted double-digit gains among Catholics and Jews, once core constituencies in the Democratic party of FDR.

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