The 2020 Polish American Vote
Which presidential candidate did the Polish American electorate support in 2020?
Before we can answer that question, we must determine if in fact there is a distinct Polish American electorate in presidential elections.
There are approximately 10 million Americans with Polish ancestry, which represents around three percent of the country’s population. However, states with large Polish populations such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are very competitive in presidential elections, which could magnify the significance of the Polish American vote, if in fact there still is one.
Undoubtedly, there used to be a strong Polish American electorate in the decades during and after the great waves of migration of Poles to the US around the turn of the last century. Prior to World War II and the Great Depression, Polish Americans are believed to have switched between support for Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, based both on economic issues and on matters related to US policy toward the newly re-formed Polish state. Then during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Polish Americans began strongly backing the Democratic Party because that party supported their unions and successfully managed US involvement in the war. Polish American blue collar workers were an important element of the New Deal coalition, but anti-communism and anger over Yalta may have persuaded many of them to back Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, although the reasons for Polish Americans voters supporting Eisenhower is debated. Support for the Catholic John F. Kennedy and then his former vice president Lyndon B. Johnson returned the Polish American vote to the Democratic side.
The culture wars begun in the 1960s, Ronald Reagan’s social conservatism and anticommunism in the 1980s, and the economic and cultural integration of Polish Americans into suburbia challenged the connection between Polish Americans and the Democratic Party. As Polish Americans abandoned the old urban neighborhoods for the greener pastures of the suburbs and came closer to achieving educational and economic parity with other white Americans, some began voting like other Americans to such an extent that Bill Clinton’s pollster Dick Morris claimed, “Neither I nor the president ever believed there is such a thing as a Polish vote. There is a white vote, a black vote, a Jewish vote, and a Hispanic vote.”
Mitt Romney may not have agreed with this sentiment, because when he ran for President in 2012, he made a trip to Poland in an effort to woo the largely Catholic Polish American vote. Also, there are those who believe that Polish American voters were key to electing Trump in 2016, including allegedly Donald Trump himself.
Dismissal of the existence of a Polish American vote matches the thinking of some scholars of ethnicity who claim that ethnic identity among white Americans is largely “symbolic” or “optional.” White ethnic identities are often mixed, and these Americans can stress their Irish roots on St. Patrick’s Day or their German heritage during Oktoberfest. As such, white ethnicity mostly no longer has any meaningful, or potentially negative consequences. How would a candidate make an ethnicity-based appeal to a group of people whose ethnic identities extend no further than drinking beer, eating ethnic food, and dressing up a few times a year in garb that may or may not be accurately connected to the ancestral homeland?
In 2019, Dominik Stecula well summarized the state of play regarding the potential influence of the votes of Polish Americans. Stecula argued that President Trump’s decision to add Poland to the visa waiver program was partially aimed at persuading Polish American voters to support his reelection. While being careful not to commit an ecological fallacy, Stecula also pointed out that there are high concentrations of Polish Americans in the key counties that propelled Trump to victory in 2016, including in Macomb County, MI and Luzerne County, PA.
In 2016 in Macomb County, Donald Trump won 53.6% of the vote, while in 2020 Trump carried the county with 53.3% of the vote. In 2016 in Luzerne County Donald Trump won 58.4% of the vote. In 2020 Trump took just 56.7% of Luzerne County. It is, of course, impossible to know if Polish Americans caused these slight drops in Trump’s support in these places.
In 2020, Republicans attempted to generate a controversy about Joe Biden, who said during an interview with the New York Times that, “We stopped showing up at the Polish American club,” and, “we all went to you, the really smart people. We had a new kind of coalition we were putting together. College-educated women and college men and boom, boom, boom and so on.” The intent of Biden’s remarks was to be critical of the Democrats for ignoring their ethnic, working class base, and the attempt to make it a scandal never caught on. But the attempt to make it into an issue indicates at least Republicans in 2020 believed Polish Americans could be motivated to vote for Trump if they could be persuaded that Democrats had insulted them.
Recently I used on-line survey software Qualtrics to conduct a non-random sample survey of Polish Americans for a project concerning cultural events such as Polish Christmas singalongs, Polish nights at baseball games, and other such symbolic ethnicity activities. Respondents were recruited through Polish, Polish American, and polka music social media groups. I also asked these respondents who they voted for in the 2020 presidential election, their preferred political party, and some demographic questions. The results give us a clearer picture of how some Polish Americans voted and viewed politics in 2020.
I recognize the limitations and benefits of this survey method. The sample may not necessarily reflect Polish Americans overall, therefore interpretations will be appropriately circumspect. On the other hand, as individuals who have participated in Polish-themed events, these respondents have indicated a commitment to their ethnic identity that makes them particularly noteworthy. The bias, then, becomes a conservative one: if being Polish American does not influence the political beliefs and behavior among these committed Polish Americans, such effects are likely to be less common among other, less committed ethnics.
Respondents were asked to place themselves in ethnic cohorts: respondent born in Poland; parents born in Poland; grandparents born in Poland and so on. For most analyses, these categories are collapsed into a single dichotomous variable: Polish American or not. This results in a sample of 224 Polish American respondents who were willing to reveal their 2020 presidential vote choice. There are 274 Polish American respondents overall.
Here are some demographic characteristics of the 224 Polish Americans who revealed their 2020 presidential vote. First, 55.6% of them are female. More than a quarter (28.6%) are between 60 and 69 years old, while more than another quarter are between 50 and 59 (27.2%). Only 15.6% are younger than 40. They are almost exclusively white (98.2%). The plurality (41.5%) live in a large city, while 28.1% live in suburbs. More than a third (40.2%) report a household income of $100,000 or more. 38.3% consider themselves Democrats, while 31.1% consider themselves independent, and 27.9% consider themselves to be Republican. Another 2.7% identified as supporters of other political parties.
The partisanship results roughly parallel the 2013 Piast Institute’s survey of Polish Americans, which found that 36.01% identified as Democrats, while 22.62% identified as Republicans, and 35.79% considered themselves independent. Another 5.58% identified as supporters of other political parties.
In terms of presidential preference, 54% of Polish Americans sampled voted for Biden, while 42.4% voted for Trump. Another 3.6% voted for some other candidate. These results are just about the reverse from what CNN exit polls show for white voters: 58% for Trump and 41% for Biden.
To test whether these differences are due to the respondents’ ethnic identity or other demographic and political factors, we should look at some relationships between their presidential preference and political and demographic factors.
Of Democrats in the sample, 90.6% voted for Joe Biden, while among Republicans, 91.9% voted for Trump. This is substantially similar to white voters in CNN exit polls, which showed 95% of white Republicans voting for Trump, and 93% of white Democrats voting for Biden. Independent Polish Americans in the sample voted for Bidden at 55.1% and Trump at 42%. The numbers for independents in the sample roughly match those for CNN exit polls of white voters, which showed Biden getting 51% of independents and Trump just 46%.
In terms of sex in the sample, 61.3% of women voted for Biden, while 50.5% of Polish American men voted for Trump. CNN exit polls found 61% of white men and 55% of white women voted for Trump.
Among white voters in CNN’s exit polls, Trump’s greatest support in terms of age came from those in the 50–64 years old category, 60% of whom voted to reelect the President. Among 50–59 year olds in the sample of Polish Americans, it was Joe Biden who received nearly 60% of the vote. Biden also earned nearly 60% of the vote from 60–69 year old Polish Americans, as well as among 70–79 year old Polish Americans.
In terms of income, among Polish Americans, Biden did best among those earning between $35,000-$49,999 and $75,000-$99,999. He did worst among those earning over $100,000. At the high end, this very closely parallels the CNN exit polls, which show Biden doing worst among those in the over $100,000 category. The numbers are strikingly similar. In our sample, 44.2% of Polish Americans making over $100,000 annually voted for Biden, while for this category of white voters in the CNN exit polls, 40% voted for Biden.
There are substantial similarities between the exit polls and the sample of Polish Americans in terms of the relationship between type of area lived in and presidential vote. Overall, 52% of white voters from urban areas supported Biden; 55.9% of urban dwelling Polish Americans supported the challenger. In the CNN exit polls, 65% of rural white voters supported Trump, while rural Polish Americans were evenly split. Trump dominated among white voters in the suburbs, taking 59% of the vote according to CNN; among Polish American suburbanites, Biden prevailed with 52.4% of the vote.
In these crosstabulations, there is evidence both for and against the hypothesis that Polish Americans vote differently from other white Americans. The strongest evidence against the claim is the data with regard to partisanship. White Polish American Democrats and Republicans each very strongly supported the nominee of their party, as did white partisans overall. Very high income and rural Polish Americans appear to vote substantially similarly to other white voters as well.
On the other hand, the Polish women of our sample voted differently from white women overall. It appears also that Biden did better with older Polish Americans than he did with older white voters overall.
Examining some additional relationships within the Polish American sample gives us some interesting, if tentative, results too. Looking at immigrant cohort, we see that 72.7% of those born in Poland voted for Trump, while 52% of those whose parents were born in Poland voted for the President. On the other hand, majorities of those whose grandparents or great grandparents were born in Poland voted or Biden. We need to be cautious in interpreting these results and the small sub-sample sizes keep the chi-square statistic from being significant (it comes in at p=.136). Nonetheless, there are a couple of explanations that make sense.
First, it is possible that those with closer temporal connections to Poland also have more family connections, and therefore these immigrants and their children appreciate President Trump for keeping his promise to add Poland to the visa waiver program, thereby making it easier for their family and friends to visit them in the US. Also, it is possible first and second generation Polish immigrants have personal memories, or memories shared from close relatives, of the miserable conditions during communist times in Poland, and therefore Republican attacks on Democrats as socialist (and the prominence of self-avowed socialists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders) may have resonated with them, as they did with some Latino voters.
Finally, respondents were asked if Being Polish American influenced their vote choice or political party preference. While the majority of respondents (73.7%) said no, a substantial 26.3% said yes. Some of the reasons offered from those who said yes allow us unique insight into how some Polish Americans link their ethnicity and politics.
For example, one non-Polish American respondent asserted, “Biden attacked both Poland & Hungary,” likely referring to the candidate’s claims during an October, 2020 town hall that, “You see what’s happened in everything from Belarus to Poland to Hungary, and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the world… This President embraces all the thugs in the world.” While the current government of Poland may have some authoritarian tendencies, Biden’s linking them with Belarus and his suggestion that they are totalitarians could certainly be seen by Polish Americans and others as insulting to Poland.
Another respondent suggested, “In my area the Polish are strongly connected to the Democratic Party because of unions helping blue collar workers,” while another wrote, “Catholic Union family. The Democratic party was vital to getting the last 100 years of Polish immigrants to the USA and supporting them and it frankly sickens me to see so many Polish Americans supporting Republican and anti-immigrant policies.” Perhaps this residual connection with the New Deal and Polish American politics explains why many older Polish Americans and those making less money still support the party and its candidates, as shown in the survey results presented above.
“Very traditional heritage would lead to more conservative candidate,” wrote one respondent. I take this as a statement of the social conservatism (often connected with Catholicism) that is prevalent in the Polish American community. As Stecula argued, “At the same time, however, Polish Americans tend to be more conservative than liberal, and socially conservative in particular. Most indicate that Catholic faith is one of their identity’s key values.” A Polish American survey respondent said it very simply, writing, “Republicans don’t believe in abortion.”
Another respondent was turned off by the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Republicans, and wrote, “We are all immigrants. I refuse to support someone who does not like/hates immigrants and those working for a better life.”
“My grandmother left Poland to escape communism,” claimed one respondent, who would likely be among the voters potentially motivated to vote against Biden and the Democrats if she were persuaded they were socialists.
One respondent framed things in exclusively pro-Polish ethnicity terms, writing, “I will vote for people with Polish last names within my party even if they are not the endorsed candidate,” while another remains angry about the end of WWII, writing, “Democrat sold Poland out at Yalta.”
So what can we conclude from all of this? Controlling for party, Polish Americans vote similarly to other white Americans, but more Polish Americans may still affiliate with the Democratic Party than other white voters do. The CNN exit polls show that only 28% of white voters are Democrats, while 46% are Republicans. The survey results presented here as well as the Piast Institute’s previous work show that Polish Americans are substantially more likely than that to affiliate with the Democratic Party.
Wealthy and rural Polish Americans may vote most similarly to other white Americans, while Polish American women may not.
Also, a significant minority of Polish Americans admit that their ethnicity plays a role in their politics, and such influence appears to pull them in both conservative and liberal directions. A little extra discussion is necessary here. In examining the relationship between ethnic cohort and answering yes that being Polish American influences which party they support and which candidates they vote for, we se that the highest group answering yes is those born in Poland, at 45.5%, and the lowest is those whose parents were born in Poland, at 14.3%. The third and fourth generations come in at 27.1 and 26.7% respectively. Due to very small sub-sample sizes, the chi-square statistic is not significant (p=.239). A very speculative analysis would suggest that the immigrants still care very much about US policies toward Poland, their children are trying to assimilate, and the later generations typically are unmoved by ethnicity related issues. But they can be, as the comments to the open-ended portion of that question suggest.
Clearly for the third, fourth and beyond generations of Polish Americans, the day to day significance of their ethnicity has faded. Their ethnicity may indeed be symbolic. Perhaps, from a political standpoint, for many of them we should think of their ethnicity as “latent,” but capable of being activated.
Zvi Gitelman first defined “latent ethnicity” in his analysis of the acculturation of Jews in the Soviet Union. He noted that by the 1950s Soviet Jews, “had lost their original ethnic culture — a compound of Judaism, Yiddish and to a lesser extent Hebrew, a distinct style of life deriving in part from the shtetl — and had adopted the language, usually Russian, and the urban styles of those among whom they lived.” Nonetheless, Jewish identity continued to exist in private. “Ethnic identity was private, and except for the state’s insistence on its registration, not usually publicly manifested or expressed,” Gitelman wrote.
Spickard, Moniz, and Dineen-Wimberly expand the concept of latent ethnicity, by explicitly contrasting it with “active ethnicity.” They wrote, “When one is with one’s ethnic fellows, one seldom thinks about one’s ethnicity except on ritual occasions. One just is ethnic — behaves in ways that embody the ethnic culture, associates with other ethnic people, and so forth. The time when one feels one’s ethnicity more vividly is when one is confronted by a large group of outsiders. Thus many White people in America imagine they have no ethnicity; yet if they spend an afternoon in Harlem or Tokyo they are bound to feel their ethnicity quite strongly.” Contact and contrast with the dominant culture awakens recognition of ethnicity.
Yoder conceives of ethnicity as on a continuum, “from mildly passive consciousness of one’s ethnic roots to the ardent ethnicity of activist leaders who want to ‘do something’ to defend, protect, and advance the group and its culture.” In moving their ethnic identity from latent to active in the 1970s and 1980s he argues that Pennsylvania Germans were contributing to a “reethnicizing of America.”
Finally, Dormon argues that “Acadian” festivals began to arouse the latent ethnicity of the Louisiana Cajun population when they were begun in the late 1960s. The revitalization of Cajun ethnic identity was the work of organized groups with often conflicting goals and perceptions of what the Acadian/Cajun community should be, but Dormon was cautiously optimistic in 1984 that the revitalization would persist. The growth in festivals, ethnicity-oriented tourism, and popularity of Louisiana music and food shows that he was right.
This theorizing and applying of the concept of “latent ethnicity” points to what I want to suggest here. For Polish Americans many generations removed from the immigrant experience, Polish American identity may be maintained and nurtured by the activities of symbolic ethnicity such as attending Polish festivals and other Polish events, celebrating holidays with some Polish flair, eating Polish foods and so forth. This symbolically maintained latent ethnicity can become active ethnicity when Polish Americans hear a Polish joke, or take offense or joy at real or perceived snubs or support from politicians or elected officials.
It is possible that the third, fourth, and fifth generations and beyond may still sometimes have their ethnicity activated and at least temporarily become be motivated by ethnicity? On the positive side, even in 2020 we saw the major presidential campaigns make appeals to Polish Americans via their ethnicity. For example, a Google search of “Polish Americans for Biden” revealed a range of activities from October’s “Polish Americans for Biden Rally,” that included appearances from luminaries such as social media star Eva Gutowski and former ambassador Mark Brzezinski, to the playful cartoon image of Biden in a traditional Polish costume and eating pierogi.
In both of his presidential campaigns Donald Trump made both policy and symbolic appeals to the Polish American community. In September, 2016, Trump spoke to the Polish American Congress and promised to add Poland to the Visa Waiver program and said, “I am all for NATO and in a Trump Administration, we will have a friendly and strong partnership with Poland and Polish Americans.” In 2018, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was to headline a “Republicans for Trump” event at the American Polish Cultural Center in Troy Michigan, along with internet celebrities Diamond and Silk, but dropped out at the last minute. Also, in 2020 there was plenty of Polish Americans for Trump merchandise available for purchase.
On the negative side, presidential campaigns seek mistakes their opponents have made and try to spin them in the media in the most destructive way possible. Sometimes these errors have a Polish American context. For example, in 2012, President Obama referred to a “Polish death camp” at the posthumous Medal of Freedom ceremony for Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski. President Obama apologized for the error about a week after making it, which may have kept it from becoming an issue in his reelection campaign, although conservative strategist David Frum called the statement “a terrible insult.”
More recently and as described above, some Republicans tried to make an issue out of two statements made by Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign. One of these — his lumping together of Poland, Hungary and Belarus as totalitarian states — made it into the open-ended responses of the survey. Polish Americans who may not live their identity on a daily basis, may nonetheless feel their ethnic pride activated and choose to support or oppose a candidate they believe has insulted or complimented their people or heritage. Symbolic ethnicity keeps this latent ethnicity alive, which can be activated for political purposes. It may even influence non-Polish Americans to be attuned to issues of significance to Polish Americans.
So, while for most Polish Americans, their ethnicity is symbolic, the fact that it continues to exist at all and can be activated in a political context is meaningful. It is therefore still the task of political science to study how Polish American identity is maintained, because it can have political consequences.
The evidence suggests there still is a distinct Polish American vote. While for millions of Polish Americans it may be true that their ethnicity is symbolic and optional, there are still others for whom ethnic identity matters in ways other than just for entertainment and culinary purposes. It is also possible for symbolic ethnicity to be occasionally awakened as something more salient and potentially influential over how people vote. Given their concentration in competitive states, the Polish American vote is likely to continue to be courted by candidates for president.
