Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb said Tuesday that whites voted for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump because "they don’t think Democrats like them."
"The base of the Democratic Party used to be working people, regardless of race, ethnic, or ethnic identity sexual orientation, et cetera," Webb, who ran for president in the Democratic Party primaries last year, said on Fox News' "The Tucker Carlson Show."
"Over time and I think particularly over the last 8 years, the Democratic Party has moved into interest group politics and in many cases, white working people have become the whipping post. I think what you saw in this election here is white working people in these rural areas seeing that someone actually was articulating the fact that they had become disenfranchised and they gravitated toward Trump in my view."
Trump won the election in surprising fashion, beating Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in big swing states like North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, despite predictions that he would lose in a landslide.
White, working class voters turned out in droves to support Trump on Election Day. The president-elect beat Clinton handily among white voters without a college degree, 72 percent to 23 percent, but also won among white, non-college educated women, 62 to 34 percent and white college-educated men, 54 to 39 percent.
Webb said diversity programs that "exclude [people] simply because they are white" have played a large role in the disenchantment with the party.
"They don't align themselves with the Democratic Party because they don't think Democrats like them. And I think what we're seeing right now, finally, is the ability to discuss this issue in an age of political correctness where you can't even say the word white working people without having someone blanch," said Webb.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.