(CNN) In the first episode of the newly revived Roseanne sitcom, we learn that Roseanne Conner, like the actress who plays Roseanne Barr, is a supporter of Donald Trump.
The news struck some longtime fans of the shows as strange. During the original series, Roseanne Conner laughed at the idea of cutting taxes for businesses and paying non-union workers wages. The show also won accolades for the way it handled LGBT stories and promoted feminism.
Barr herself they watched Inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993.
How could a show that was considered progressive in its time now have a main character who supports Trump?
Conner's endorsement of Trump in 2018 turns out to be one of the most realistic political developments on television.
Back in the 1990s, a voter like Conner would very likely have been a Clinton voter. The Conners are a working-class (ie no college educated) white family living in the industrial Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin). During Roseanne's final original season from 1996-1997, voters meeting this description voted for Bill Clinton by an 11 percentage point margin in 1996 Los Angeles Times exit poll. Clinton won that subgroup en route to carrying every Midwest state except Indiana.
Political alliances in the Midwest have changed significantly since then. Hillary Clinton lost the entire industrial Midwest except Illinois in 2016. The reason is that she was crushed among voters who knew Conners' description. He lost white voters without a college degree in the industrial Midwest by about 30 percentage points according to exit poll data. Based on other data, the actual margin may have been slightly smaller, but this is in the right ballpark. It's a 40-point swing since 1996.
Losing the “Conner vote” by nearly 30 points is electorally fatal to the industrial Midwest, considering how many voters look like the Conners. White working-class voters make up 50% of the electorate in those states, according to 2016 Current Population Survey.
Indeed, losing the “Conner vote” by such a wide margin was perhaps the biggest problem of the Clinton campaign in 2016. Clinton staked her lot with college-educated white and non-white voters. Now, Clinton she certainly did better than her husband among college-educated voters, but make up only about a third of voters in the Midwest. And because Clinton was seemingly focused on winning over non-white, college-educated white voters, she seemed to lose sight of the group in the industrial Midwest that was the largest swath of voters. In fact, uneducated white voters are even greater at the national level from the bloc of white or non-white voters.
Given that, it would be odd to reboot Roseanne, get into politics, and not introduce a character who voted for Trump over Clinton in 2016.
