Wisconsin Primaries: Obama picked up additional support from white women, and McCain won conservatives overall

By David Paul Kuhn

Politico.com, Feb 21, 2008

Wisconsin exit polls spell trouble for Clinton

Barack Obama neutralized Hillary Rodham Clinton's strength with women and devastated her among men in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday, according to exit polls.

Obama also demonstrated continued improvement with whites, working class Democrats, and rural and suburban voters since Super Tuesday.

He split white women, marking about a 10-point improvement since early February. He also won half of married women, and even won single women. Obama took six in ten white men, a demographic that has shifted between the two candidates throughout the race. His white male support also marked about a 10-point improvement since Super Tuesday.

Regionally, the news was no better for Clinton. Obama won a majority of suburban voters, something Clinton did on Super Tuesday. He split rural voters, whom Clinton had won by about 20 points two weeks ago. Clinton also had won a slight majority of urban voters then. Obama won Wisconsin city dwellers by about a two to one ratio.

The gains across the Democratic electorate echoed results last week in Maryland and Virginia. It offered Obama strong indications that he may be well positioned coming into the critical contest in Ohio in two weeks, where the demographic makeup is not significantly dissimilar from Wisconsin.

In a state where half the voters were white women, where only one in ten voters were minorities, and where more than half were from households that made less than $74,999 annually, Wisconsin should have comported with Clinton's strengths. But the exit polls, conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for television networks and the Associated Press, offered scarce news of encouragement for the New York senator.

Clinton remained competitive among Democrats. But it was a victory for Obama to split even the white Democrats.

The Clinton campaign had hedged expectations going into Wisconsin, as an open primary. Obama has won independents throughout the race. And Wisconsin was no different.

Obama won independents by a two to one ratio, which amounted to one in four voters. Obama won every philosophical persuasion of Democrat. Those who identified as "very liberal" to "somewhat conservative" voted for the Illinois senator. Half the electorate were liberal and Obama won them by double digits. The largest share of voters, though, identified as moderates. And Obama won a clear majority of their support.

On the issues, Obama won those voters by double digits who said the war in Iraq or the economy was the most important issue facing the country. About four in ten Democrats, as well as Republicans, said the economy was what most concerned them coming into the Wisconsin contest.

For Republicans, John McCain further cemented his status as the presumptive Republican nominee. McCain won across demographic groups and showed some strength with his base Tuesday.

McCain won conservatives overall, though losing the most strict among them. McCain also won those voters who said that illegal immigration was the most important issue, a rare feat for the Republican candidate who has been dogged by the issue throughout the primaries.

Within the GOP electorate, McCain won those who were "somewhat conservative" by about 20 points. It was a significant margin over Mike Huckabee with this moderately conservative bloc of Republican voters.

Yet Huckabee still won "very conservative" voters, as he consistently has in head to head match ups with McCain. Huckabee won this third of Republicans by about 10 points. McCain has yet to successfully draw these most conservative voters into his coalition. McCain's continued strength with moderates and independents, however, continued to compensate for his weakness with some conservatives.

McCain won more than three times as many moderate or liberal Republicans as Huckabee, who were about four in ten GOP voters. McCain, as expected, also won independents by double digits.

About four in ten Republicans voted on terrorism or the war in Iraq; McCain won them by a two to one ratio over Huckabee. McCain also won by double digits those voters who were most concerned about the economy.

But it was the Democratic contest that garnered most of the attention Tuesday, as Obama captured his ninth victory.

About half of Democrats, as they often have, said they most valued in a candidate that he or she "can bring about needed change." Obama won them by a three to one ratio. Obama also narrowly won those voters who said they sought a nominee who "cares about people like me." Clinton won nearly every voter who said experience mattered most, but they were merely a quarter of Democratic voters.

Clinton still won seniors and held onto small branches of her working class support. She won those voters who only had a high school education, about a quarter of Democratic voters. But she only split those voters who make less than $50,000 annually, once a cornerstone of her support.

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