DID AMERICAN DEINDUSTRIALIZATION DELIVER VOTES TO TRUMP? A COUNTY-LEVEL ANALYSIS OF THE 2016 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Abstract

Trump’s economic nationalistic message to “Make America Great Again” by bringing back manufacturing jobs has been credited as a key reason for his electoral victory. This paper seeks to test this hypothesis by analyzing the effect of the change in the share of manufacturing employment between 2000 and 2007, on Trump’s vote share across counties in the 2016 election. For the country as a whole, I find no relationship between the two. However, in the three key states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—that victory in the 2016 election was predicated on, I estimate a large and robust negative effect that the change in the share of manufacturing employment has on Trump’s vote share. Based on my estimates, a small improvement in the three key states’ manufacturing sector performance would have led to a sizable reduction in Trump’s vote share that could have made Clinton president, holding all else constant.