I know! Why can't poor people just vote themselves more and more unaffordable benefits like in Greece. What could possibly go wrong?

"Lower-income and less educated whites also have shifted substantially toward the Republican Party since 2008. The GOP has largely erased the wide lead Democrats had among white voters with family incomes less than $30,000." [0]

Although the graphs on [1] tell a slightly different story.

[0] - http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/23/a-closer-look-at-the-... [1] - http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/09/26/161841771/how-inco...

White people only make up 72% of the population. You can't dismiss the other 28%.

The gist of it is the "religious right" got in bed with all the big money/exploit-the-world old white men.

Then, messaging to voters becomes "I LOVE GOD!" instead of "All your money flows up to me." The "poor people vote republican" line of thought follows from people believing poorer/more-religious people vote only on religion above all else without regard for how much their representatives also want to exploit/maim/kill/cancer them.

Recent evidence doesn't entirely support that conclusion, but it makes for a convenient story.

What we end up with is the representatives not keeping up to date with reality. The reps stay "god god god religion god god jesus" while the world drifted more to "Uh, actually everything is pretty okay. Just stay out of our way." You can see that effect in southern "we hate all the gays" politicians while most real people don't want oppression/repression/persecution of them at all.

But—to get your way—all you have to do is scaretivate (scare+motivate) a small vocal base into voting for your overton candidate. (See: 2004 GWB election where "kill the gays" was set as a constitutional amendment in a dozen states along with "Vote for GWB!" — Drag the crazies out to vote for their delusional pet social bigot issue while also catapulting your candidate pet back to victory (well, victory against a droning sedated sloth, but victory nonetheless))

Poor in urban areas = Democrat

Poor in rural areas = Republican

Poor in urban areas = Black

Poor in rural areas = White

Best selling books have been written about it. [1]http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-Amer...

I don't know the statistics off hand but I remember reading that there were poor counties in the US in which Romney did not receive a single vote. So yea I'm not sure what context OP is referring to.