"Those blue-collar culturally conservative voters represent a big share of the Republican electorate not only across the south but also in many Midwestern states. They also remain one of the most closely divided constituencies in the party, according to an array of recent polls provided to Next
America.
Trump’s strength among working-class evangelical Christians is helping him to closely press Cruz in Iowa, a state whose Republican caucus has usually favored the candidate that evangelicals prefer. The same dynamic could threaten Cruz in the Southern states that he is counting on to boost his candidacy in early March. Continued Trump strength among blue-collar evangelicals would also frame Midwestern states with many of those voters, including Ohio, Missouri, and Wisconsin, as potentially pivotal showdowns between the two men.
A wild card is whether a third candidate can consolidate the voters at the opposite end of the GOP’s class and cultural spectrum: college graduates who are not evangelical Christians. Those voters provided the foundation for the nomination victories of Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008. But they remain fragmented so far in this race and have not coalesced around a single champion.
But this year, the particular strengths of Trump and Cruz—and the vacuum in the white-collar lane that Romney filled last time—have produced a more complex mosaic.
To understand how states may fall between this field of candidates, it’s revealing to look at education and religious affiliation together to create a four-way grid of Republican voters: evangelicals with and without a four-year college degree, and non-evangelicals with and without such advanced education.
Trump consistently polls best among the non-evangelicals without a college degree—the working-class whites many would describe as the prototypical Reagan Democrats.
Cruz’s best group in these polls, particularly more recent ones, are Republicans at the opposite corner of the party: evangelicals who hold a college degree.
Among college-educated values voters, 47 percent preferred Cruz and Carson combined, compared to just 14 percent for Trump. (Marco Rubio actually finished ahead of Trump with these well-educated evangelicals in both surveys.) Carson ran particularly well with these voters early on, and Cruz will likely benefit from the extent to which the neurosurgeon continues to slip in the race.
That leaves two of the four groups in this segmenting largely up for grabs.
One is the faction that has backed the winner in the two most recent GOP contests: non-evangelicals who hold a college degree. These white-collar, more secular, economically focused voters matter most in more affluent and urbanized states.
Polls show a narrow three-way split among them for Trump, Cruz, and Rubio in Iowa;
Cruz’s problem, many analysts say, is that even many evangelicals this year may find Trump’s anti-establishment, anti-immigrant, anti-trade arguments more compelling than social issues." NationalJournal
Trump’s strength among working-class evangelical Christians is helping him to closely press Cruz in Iowa, a state whose Republican caucus has usually favored the candidate that evangelicals prefer. The same dynamic could threaten Cruz in the Southern states that he is counting on to boost his candidacy in early March. Continued Trump strength among blue-collar evangelicals would also frame Midwestern states with many of those voters, including Ohio, Missouri, and Wisconsin, as potentially pivotal showdowns between the two men.
A wild card is whether a third candidate can consolidate the voters at the opposite end of the GOP’s class and cultural spectrum: college graduates who are not evangelical Christians. Those voters provided the foundation for the nomination victories of Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008. But they remain fragmented so far in this race and have not coalesced around a single champion.
But this year, the particular strengths of Trump and Cruz—and the vacuum in the white-collar lane that Romney filled last time—have produced a more complex mosaic.
To understand how states may fall between this field of candidates, it’s revealing to look at education and religious affiliation together to create a four-way grid of Republican voters: evangelicals with and without a four-year college degree, and non-evangelicals with and without such advanced education.
Trump consistently polls best among the non-evangelicals without a college degree—the working-class whites many would describe as the prototypical Reagan Democrats.
Cruz’s best group in these polls, particularly more recent ones, are Republicans at the opposite corner of the party: evangelicals who hold a college degree.
Among college-educated values voters, 47 percent preferred Cruz and Carson combined, compared to just 14 percent for Trump. (Marco Rubio actually finished ahead of Trump with these well-educated evangelicals in both surveys.) Carson ran particularly well with these voters early on, and Cruz will likely benefit from the extent to which the neurosurgeon continues to slip in the race.
That leaves two of the four groups in this segmenting largely up for grabs.
One is the faction that has backed the winner in the two most recent GOP contests: non-evangelicals who hold a college degree. These white-collar, more secular, economically focused voters matter most in more affluent and urbanized states.
Polls show a narrow three-way split among them for Trump, Cruz, and Rubio in Iowa;
Cruz’s problem, many analysts say, is that even many evangelicals this year may find Trump’s anti-establishment, anti-immigrant, anti-trade arguments more compelling than social issues." NationalJournal
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