By Ronald Brownstein, NationalJournal.com
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008

It isn't quite as flashy as the children's crusade -- the surge of young voters into the Democratic presidential contests in Iowa and New Hampshire this year.

	A head-turning 28 percent of New Hampshire Democratic voters earned at least $100,000 annually.

But the first Democratic presidential contests have been shaped as much by a march of the millionaires -- or at least an uprising among the upper-middle class.

While most attention has focused on the growing participation of young people, upper-income voters also cast a much larger share of Democratic ballots in Iowa and New Hampshire than they did in the 2004 or 2000. In each state, in fact, affluent voters contributed a significantly larger share of the vote than the young.

If upper-income voters continue to turn out in large numbers, it should benefit Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who beat New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton among the affluent in both states. That support could prove especially valuable for Obama in the wealthy coastal states headlined by California that will begin voting on Feb. 5th -- "Tsunami Tuesday." "On Feb. 5, there are a lot of delegates at stake on both coasts, and that's where it really kicks in," says Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who is not affiliated with any of the campaigns.

Equally important, the growing receptivity of upper-income voters to Democratic candidates -- a trend reflected also in the enormous fundraising advantage that the party's presidential contenders have amassed over their Republican counterparts -- could create a significant opportunity for Democrats in November's general election. But it could also produce uncomfortable tensions and contradictions for a party that appears set on defining itself in 2008 with a thumping populist message that argues the economy is unfairly tilted toward the same affluent families now pouring into its primaries.

The up-scaling of the Democratic race reflects both long-term trends and short-term dynamics. The long-term trend is a generation-long shift in the nature of both major parties' electoral coalitions. In the first decades after the New Deal, Republicans consistently ran best among upper-income families, managers and professionals, while Democrats relied primarily on the votes of industrial and other working-class voters.

That alignment eroded in the 1960s and 1970s, as Republicans attracted more blue-collar voters, mostly by stressing conservative views on social issues and national security. Flipping the picture, Democrats in the 1970s began attracting upper-income, white-collar voters -- especially those with advanced education -- who tended toward more liberal positions on those non-economic issues.

These mirror-image incursions have moved the parties from an electoral competition that turned mostly on class to one that revolves primarily around culture. Republican presidential candidates still carry most upper-income voters. But their advantage is no longer as reliable or as monolithic, as Democratic support has increased particularly among professionals with postgraduate degrees, like lawyers or professors. When John F. Kennedy won the presidency in 1960, he won just 42 percent of such professionals, according to the University of Michigan's post-election surveys; when John F. Kerry lost the presidency in 2004, he carried 56 percent of them.

These long-term trends have been reinforced by upper-income disillusionment with President Bush. In Gallup surveys over the past year, Bush's approval rating among Americans earning at least $75,000 a year has rarely exceeded 40 percent. That discontent has created an opening for Democrats -- which Obama, with his "post-partisan" message of national reconciliation and elegant, charismatic manner, has filled more successfully than any of his rivals.

"Obama is accelerating an existing trend," says Garin. "These voters find in Obama a candidate with whom they feel extremely comfortable, but in some respects that's the middle of the story. The beginning of the story is that this is a group that has been repelled... by President Bush."

The combination of these long- and short-term factors has produced striking growth at the top in this year's Democratic contest. Voters earning at least $75,000 a year represented 36 percent of those participating in this year's Iowa caucus, according to the Edison/Mitofsky exit poll. That's more than double the 17 percent share of the vote from that bracket in the caucus between Al Gore and Bill Bradley just eight years ago. The Democratic percentage this year was even larger than the share of such upper-income voters who turned out for the 2008 Republican caucus (33 percent).

In New Hampshire, a considerably more affluent state, the race tilted even more toward the upper end. Fully 44 percent of Democratic primary voters there last week came from families earning at least $75,000 annually. A head-turning 28 percent of New Hampshire Democratic voters earned at least $100,000 annually.

By contrast to Iowa, wealthy families in New Hampshire still constituted a larger share of the turnout in the Republican primary. But the growth in their participation on the Democratic side is still striking. The share of Democratic ballots cast by voters earning at least $100,000 increased by nearly half just since 2004. For comparison, the share of the Democratic vote cast by young people rose about 30 percent from 2004 to 2008 in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

Some of the increase among high-end voters can be explained by the simple reality that there are more of them. From 2000 through 2006 (the most recent year for which figures are available), the share of Iowa families earning at least $75,000 increased from about one-sixth to nearly one-fourth, according to Census Bureau figures. In New Hampshire, the rise over the same period was from 26 percent to 38 percent.

But the fact that so many of these newly affluent families participated in the Democratic contests reflects the larger political changes of the past generation. Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire survey center, says Democrats are capturing most of the younger, well-educated, socially-liberal voters steadily migrating into the state to fill knowledge-industry jobs in finance or technology. "They are more likely to be higher education, higher income, and more likely to be Democrats," Smith says. And, indeed, the Edison/Mitofsky exit poll found that one-third of upper-income Democratic primary voters last week held postgraduate degrees, a far greater percentage than the population overall.

Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a Democratic group that studies electoral trends and tactics, says the growing role of upper-income voters in the party also reflects the Democrats' lead in utilizing the internet to raise money and recruit support. "These people are the first early adopters on this technology... the people who are in this wired world," he says.

These upper-income and well-educated voters could boost Obama. In the 2004 Democratic primaries, upper-income voters cast as large a share of the vote in many coastal states -- including Maryland, Connecticut and most importantly California -- as they did that year in New Hampshire. If upscale turnout spikes as much in those states as it did last week in New Hampshire, it would strengthen Obama's hand. Obama's potential appeal in the African-American community could allow him to assemble a coalition of upper-income "knowledge-class" whites with blacks who cluster at the median income or below -- a combination not previously seen in Democratic presidential politics. He has the potential, in other words, to substantially combine the constituencies of Gary Hart and Jesse Jackson in 1984.

The critical question, though, may be whether Obama can fill the hole in the center of that doughnut, among white working-class Democrats, who preferred Clinton over him in New Hampshire. Breaking through with those less affluent voters will become more critical for Obama in states between the coasts, where the Democratic electorate retains much more of a shot-and-a-beer feel: In Ohio, for instance, only 22 percent of Democratic primary voters in 2004 earned at least $75,000, exactly half the share in New Hampshire last week.

Longer term, the issue for the Democratic contenders is whether they can balance a coalition that includes more comfortable families with the party's increasingly populist economic message, which focuses on the "struggling middle-class." On issues such as taxes and trade, these constituencies may pull the eventual nominee away from the populist message that most liberals want the party to pursue. It's already possible to see the party's growing reliance on upper middle-income families reflected in the reluctance of the Democratic candidates to propose a Social Security tax increase on families earning just above the current ceiling on payroll taxes, $102,000 annually. Once Democrats might have considered that group part of the "wealthy" suitable to bear larger burdens; now the candidates are mostly suggesting that any increase in Social Security taxes should be reserved for workers earning twice that much or more.

Such shifts in the party's focus are starting to raise some eyebrows on the left. Liberal activist David Sirota says that, overall, "the more people brought into the party the better." But Sirota, author of "The Uprising," an upcoming book studying contemporary populism, says that "if the party caters higher and higher on the income ladder" it could grow too reluctant to ask for sacrifice from the wealthy on issues such as taxes or health care. "If this trend continues, that is where the division along income lines in the party could occur," he argues.

Rosenberg insists that the tension "can be reconciled" if Democrats synthesize a "market-oriented strategy" to "produce broad-based prosperity." But he acknowledges none of the 2008 Democrats has yet done so. It's also unclear whether Clinton or John Edwards, if either of them wins the nomination, could personally connect with upper-income voters as effectively as Obama has done. Cashing in on the party's primary season breakthroughs with the affluent will still challenge the Democrats next fall.