Macron’s and Buttigieg’s campaigns also appeal to similar people: college-educated voters content with their economic lot and optimistic about the future. In the first round of France’s presidential election, Macron beat Le Pen by 21 points among voters with at least three years of post-high-school education, but lost to her by 11 points among voters without a high-school degree. He beat her by 19 points among professionals and managers, but among blue-collar voters lost to both her and the far-left candidate, Mélenchon. In the runoff, he beat Le Pen by 58 points among people who said they “easily” maintained financial security, but lost by 38 points among those who found doing so “very difficult.” He beat her by 60 points among people who thought members of the younger generation would fare better than their parents, but only by 18 points among those who thought they would fare worse.

Buttigieg’s support base is demographically similar. A recent WBUR poll of New Hampshire voters found that he led Joe Biden by 12 points among voters with graduate degrees, but trailed him by an equal margin among voters who haven’t attended college. He led Bernie Sanders by 10 points among voters who earn $100,000 or more, but trailed him by six points among voters who earn less than $50,000. A recent study in The Guardian noted that while teachers were most likely to donate to Sanders, business executives were most likely to donate to Buttigieg. Buttigieg garnered the most donations from doctors, Sanders from nurses. The senator from Vermont’s disproportionately downscale base shows a striking antipathy toward Buttigieg. When YouGov and The Economist in October asked Sanders’s voters for their second choice, Buttigieg came in fifth, behind Andrew Yang.

Macron’s experience since taking power hints at the potential risks of trying to govern with a coalition of the credentialed and the content in an era of growing class and cultural division—especially when the president himself personifies that credentialism. In the fall of last year, Macron tried to raise the fuel tax in an effort to combat climate change. The move sparked a revolt, which began on Facebook and chose as its symbol the neon-yellow garments that French drivers are required to don in case of emergency. The “yellow vest” protesters tended to live in rural or exurban areas where people depend more on cars than do the residents of France’s big cities. The protesters generally lacked college degrees and had modest incomes. Ideologically, as John Lichfield noted in The Guardian, the movement presented “no coherent ideology, even a refusal of ideology.” The most popular politician among movement supporters was the far-right leader Marine Le Pen. But their second-favorite politician was Mélenchon, the candidate of the far left. The fury that propelled the yellow vests was less ideological than cultural, less about left and right than high and low status. The protesters, Lichfield wrote, “are convinced or have been convinced that the little or middling people like them are held in contempt by the trendy, rich, globally-oriented people of successful metropolitan France. That’s why, I think, Macron has sparked such anger and hatred: not so much for what he has done in the past 20 months but for what he represents … He is the embodiment of the rich, clever, self-replicating people from the governing classes who’ve been to the finishing schools of the governing elite and think they know everything.”