The Democratic Party has spent years hoping that demography would equal destiny. As the country became more racially diverse, Democrats imagined that they would become the majority party thanks to support from Asian, Black and Hispanic voters. The politics of America, according to this vision, would start to resemble the liberal politics of California.

It’s not working out that way. Instead, Americans of color have moved to the right over the past decade.

The latest New York Times/Siena College poll offers detailed evidence. The poll reached almost 1,500 Black and Hispanic Americans, far more than most surveys do. (Our poll didn’t focus on Asian voters, but they have shifted, too.)

A key fact is that the rightward drift is concentrated among working-class voters, defined as those without a four-year college degree:

I know that many Democrats find this pattern to be maddening. They wonder how voters of color could have moved right during the era of Donald Trump, a man with a long history of racism. But the chart above points to a partial explanation: For most Americans, race is a less significant political force than many progressives believe it is — and economic class is more significant.

Most isn’t enough

The past four years have highlighted the ways that Democrats exaggerate the political importance of racial identity. Joe Biden, after all, promised to nominate the first Black female Supreme Court justice (which he did) and chose Kamala Harris as the first Black vice president — who has now succeeded him as the Democratic nominee. Yet Harris has less support from Black voters than Hillary Clinton did in 2016.