Editing New Deal coalition (section)

=== Class ethnicity, and religion ===
In the northern states, class and ethnicity proved decisive factors in the New Deal coalition as shown by polling data in presidential and congressional elections from 1936 through 1968. Over the period, blue-collar workers averaged 63% Democratic voters. White collar workers, representing the middle class, averaged 43% Democratic.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}} By religious affiliation over the period, while northern White Protestants averaged 58% Republican, White Catholics were 68% Democrats. Social class and religious affiliation had separate effects that could intersect, so that Catholic blue-collar workers were 76% Democratic, while Protestant blue-collar workers were only 52% Democratic.{{Citation needed|date=December 2024}} Throughout the period, better educated higher income middle-class voters tended to lean more towards Republicans, so that average Northern Protestant white collar voters were 69% Republican, while a Catholic counterpart was only 41% Republican. A dichotomy formed in the north between Catholic blue-collar workers forming the core of the Democratic Party, while Protestant businessmen, professionals, and clerical workers fell in with the GOP.<ref>{{cite book|editor-first1=Seymour Martin|editor-last1=Lipset|title=Party Coalitions in the 1980s|year=1981|pages=79}}</ref> A Gallup poll of listees in ''Who's Who'' in early 1936 showed that only 31% planned to vote for Roosevelt.<ref>{{cite book|first1=John M. |last1=Allswang|title=The New Deal and American Politics: A Study in Political Change|year=1978|pages=57}}</ref> Nationwide, Roosevelt won 36% of the votes of business and professional voters in 1940, 48% of lower-level white-collar workers, 66% of blue-collar workers, and 54% of farmers.<ref>According to Gallup polls reported in George Gallup, ''The Political Almanac 1952'' (1952) p. 36.</ref>
Among various demographics, ethnicity was the strongest reliable identifier for Democrats that held together the New Deal coalition, listed below is the distribution of party identification in 1944 among the northern electorate:
{| class="wikitable"
! Party identification<br> in Northern cities, 1944!!Democratic !! Independent !!Republican 
|-
| All ||  32% ||   32%|| 36%
|-
| Irish || 52% ||  27% || 21%
|-
| Black || 46% || 20% || 34%
|-
| Jewish || 54% || 35% || 11%
|-
| Italian|| 52%|| 21% || 27% 
|-
| ''Source'':<ref>Leo Srole, and Robert T. Bower, ''Voting Behavior of American Ethnic Groups, 1936–1944'' (Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University, 1948)</ref>
|}

Roosevelt was successful in attracting further support from Italian, Black, and Jewish voters between 1936 to 1940. 
{| class="wikitable"
|+
!Vote Shifting from 1936
!Roosevelt in 1936
!Wilkie in 1936
!Undecided; non-voters in 1936
|-
|Italian for Landon in 1940
|2.8%
|91.6%
|5.6%
|-
|Italian for Roosevelt in 1940
|64.4%
|23.9%
|11.7%
|-
|Jewish for Landon in 1940
|8.7%
|91.2%
|0.1%
|-
|Jewish for Roosevelt in 1940
|88.2%
|7.7%
|4.1%
|-
|Black for Landon in 1940
|17.1%
|73.2%
|9.7%
|-
|Black for Roosevelt in 1940
|72.6%
|17.8%
|9.6%
|-
|Source:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Strunk |first=Mildred |title=Public Opinion: 1935-1946 |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1951 |editor-last=Cantril |editor-first=Hadley |pages=619}}</ref>
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|}

The coalition was strongest among Jews and Catholics and weakest among White Protestants. 
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! 1940 votes by religious denomination!!% for FDR 
|-
| All ||  55% 
|-
| Jewish || 87% 
|-
| Catholic|| 73% 
|-
| None given|| 51% 
|-
| Protestant|| 45%
|-
| Source: Gallup Poll #294, #335.<ref>AIPO (Gallup) Poll #294 (1943), #335 (1944){{cite book|editor-last1=Cantril|editor-last2=Strunk|title=Public Opinion, 1935–1946|year=1951|page=591}}</ref>
|}