If Donald Trump is elected president in November, he will have assembled a coalition unlike any Republican nominee in my lifetime.
For decades, GOP success has depended on support from college-educated white voters in the suburbs and non-college-educated white voters in manufacturing centers and rural areas. Republican candidates tried to maximize turnout among this electoral base, while adding a majority of independent voters to the GOP column. Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and the two Bushes used this strategy to great effect. Donald Trump did, too.
