Look at the counties Ted Cruz won in Michigan. Six of them are clustered on the western edge of the state, the part that includes Grand Rapids and Holland. That cluster contains the only five counties — Newaygo, Oceana, Ottawa, Allegan and Kent — where Cruz won more than 35 percent of the vote.
They’re also the most Dutch parts of the state. Allegan is 20.8 percent Dutch, Newaygo is 13.3 percent Dutch, Kent is 18.6 percent Dutch and Ottawa County (home to Holland, Michigan) is 30.4 percent Dutch and also gave Cruz his largest margin of victory of any county: 16 points over John Kasich and 20 points over Trump.
The most Dutch municipality in Michigan is Moline, a town within the Dorr Township in Allegan County. Moline is within the 2nd precinct of Door, which voted 51.23 percent for Cruz.
In the city of Zeeland, Michigan, the most Dutch place in Michigan with a population over 10,000, Cruz won more than 40 percent in every precinct.
All of these most Dutch places are in those four Dutch counties.
We saw this unfold in Sioux County Iowa and Pella, where the Dutch Counties voted heavily for Cruz. And you can see shadows of it in the Michigan exit polls. Look at the vote of the evangelicals who take their religion very seriously — this will feature much of the Dutch Reformed vote. This slice of the electorate favored Cruz by 10 percent.
This warrants further study.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
