One constant factor in the 14 contests with exit polls is that Mitt Romney has tended to run best among high-income and high-education voters. His leading opponents — Newt Gingrich in South Carolina and Georgia, Ron Paul in Iowa, New Hampshire and Virginia, and Rick Santorum everywhere else — have run best among low-income and low-education voters.
It is in the nature of political journalism that much attention is devoted to downscale voters. A question often asked is whether Republicans generally and Romney in particular can run well among blue-collar whites.
Actually, Republicans have done pretty well with this group. In the dreadful Republican year of 2008, exit polls showed John McCain carrying noncollege whites by 58 to 40 percent over Barack Obama. George W. Bush did even better in 2004.
This year Obama campaign strategists have signaled that they’re not targeting the folks that Obama, speaking to rich liberals at a San Francisco Bay Area fundraiser, characterized as bitterly clinging to guns and God. They’re targeting the college-educated, the young and Latinos instead.
Read the rest of Michael Barone’s column HERE.
