This article was originally published at FiveThirtyEight on June 2, 2016. A common refrain is that demographics will ultimately doom Donald Trump’s candidacy. His most reliable supporters have been whites without college degrees — a group that made up 65 percent of voters in 1980 but is on pace to make up just 33 percent in 2016. Meanwhile, nonwhite voters, with whom Trump is extremely unpopular, rose from 12 percent of the electorate in 1980 to 28 percent in 2012. However, there was one year during that period when the white share of the electorate ticked up 2 percentage points: 1992. What happened in 1992? It was the last time an ideology-defying, billionaire outsider stirred up a nationwide frenzy. For Democrats, Ross Perot is an eerie precedent. The youngest voters in 2016 weren’t yet born when Perot appeared on the ballot, but the 1992 white uptick was probably attributable to the Texas tycoon’s 19 percent showing. Like Trump, Perot railed against NAFTA, promised to restore America’s greatness on the world stage and used unconventional gimmicks to draw attention to himself.

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