
It is widely misunderstood how vital suburban white working-class (noncollege) voters were to Biden’s victory in 2020. While suburban white college voters shifted around 10 margin points toward Biden, suburban white working-class voters also had a solid 5-point pro-Democratic shift. Because of this group’s larger size, their shift toward Biden contributed almost as much to the Democrats’ improved margin over Trump in 2020 as suburban white college voters. And just how liberal are these college-educated voters anyway? Overall, according to Gallup, just 30% of adults with a four-year degree only describe themselves as liberal, and 36% of those with some postgraduate education (the less numerous group) do so. Putting this together with the data about suburban demographics, this implies that perhaps one-ninth (a third of a third) of suburban voters are white college-educated liberals.