Westneat: State has massive fault line

But the college gap is off-the-charts unusual. Even though Trump is losing here by double digits, he leads among those with a high school education or less by 32 percentage points — 59 percent to 27 percent, according to the SurveyUSA poll of 708 likely Washington voters.

Meanwhile Biden is ahead among those with a bachelor’s degree or higher by an even more incredible figure — 46 points, 67 percent to just 21 percent.

The college vs. noncollege divide has become a trope in races involving Trump, as college-educated voters have raced the other way. But the overreliance of the parties on these camps is now dominating other races, too.

The WA Poll shows Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell leading her GOP opponent, Raul Garcia, by a healthy 21 percentage points. But look at where it’s coming from. Though he’s behind by landslide numbers, Garcia is up by 30 points among voters with a high school diploma or less. While Cantwell’s cushion comes mostly from a 72-26 margin with the college set.

That’s a 76-point diploma gap. And Garcia is no MAGA shouter; he’s a doctor trying to appeal to suburban educated elites with a more science-based, pro-abortion-rights message.

When I wrote about this diploma gap two years ago, it was about 40 points. That it’s now nearly twice that suggests a seismic shift in the political plates.

It’s the “Brahmin Left” versus the “Populist Right,” says political scientist Ruy Teixeira. (Brahmin meaning “a person wielding social or economic power,” and populist, in this context, meaning working class.) Both parties are leaning dangerously hard on these voter bases.

Polarization

Of the Democrats, he writes: “There is a point beyond which the loss of working-class voters cannot be plausibly balanced by increased support among college-educated and professional voters, and the model is fatally undermined.”

He was speaking nationally. Washington is one of the more college-educated states and Democrats do just fine here even as they’re losing some ties to working-class voters.

To their credit, I’ve heard many Democratic politicos and organizations discussing these trends. One consultant this spring lamented to me that the Democrats had become “the party of Wallingford” — urban, educated, wealthy, and (sorry friends in Wallingford) prone to politically correct lecturing and idealism.

“How (bleeped) is it that we don’t respect or listen to people until they have a college degree?” Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, called out her own party.

I hear much less self-examination the other way by Republicans. What Republican is even pretending to speak to the Ph.Ds.? That last part may sound laughable — I laughed when I wrote it. But at the top of the GOP ticket, scientific concepts like climate change are denounced as a hoax, and women’s reproductive care is a “state’s right.” Stuff like that has devastated GOP prospects here in Washington.

Meanwhile the Democrats seem to have misjudged how high school grads might react to, say, carbon regulation schemes that jack gas prices. Or canceling college debt.

Teixeira says the Democrats’ “Brahmin Left” model has been pushed to the limit nationally: “This election, it may very well break.” Here in Washington, polls suggest it’s more likely to be the GOP’s “populist right” shtick that won’t play — again.

Education polarization has become the biggest political divide I’ve ever seen. It seems likely to keep polarizing politics before something, or someone, comes along with cross-class appeal to break the mold.