|
 His sweep of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut and
Rhode Island on Tuesday included wins in some of the richest and
best-educated counties in the country - like Fairfield County,
Connecticut, and Newport County, Rhode Island - and added to
victories in his more traditional strongholds of white working-class
neighborhoods.
Exit polls from Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland showed Trump
winning about half of Republican voters with college degrees, and
over half of Republican voters making more than $100,000 a year.
“On its face, it is hard to believe he’d be improving with a
demographic group that has been so averse to his style, his
denigrating language,” said Randall Miller, a professor of American
politics at Saint Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania.
“But I think people may have gotten used to Trump, he’s not as
outrageous as he used to be,” he said, adding that familiarity with
the businessman's brand in the Northeast may also have helped him.
 Still, the five states could be an uphill battle for Republicans in
the Nov. 8 presidential election. The last Republican presidential
nominee to win any of them was George H.W. Bush in 1988.
The challenge for the New York billionaire could be to replicate
Tuesday's performance in other parts of the country as he seeks to
lock down his party’s nomination, with 10 state contests remaining.
Nationally, likely voters with a college degree have become
increasingly critical of Trump in recent months, according to
Reuters/Ipsos polling. He is also increasingly unpopular with those
who make more than $100,000 a year.
But with Trump far ahead of his rivals, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of
Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich, in the race for the
presidential nomination, Miller said Republican voters of all
stripes may become more resigned to voting for Trump.
"I think it is possible he replicates this." ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT
Trump has historically done well in areas where the collapse of
important local industries has put stress on working families -
propelling his popularity among poorer white voters drawn to his
rhetoric about inept government and failed international trade
deals.
[to top of second column] |
That narrative persisted in Tuesday’s contests. Trump took more than
63 percent of the vote in Forest County, Pennsylvania, where the
median family income among whites, at $45,000, is the lowest in the
state. But he also got more than 46 percent of the vote in Chester
County, Pennsylvania, where median income for whites is the highest
in the state, at $108,000.
A Franklin and Marshall College voter survey released last week
showed Trump's message of disaffection had sunk in across the state.
Just under 40 percent of voters cited "government, politicians" as
the most important problem facing Pennsylvania, with "unemployment,
personal finances” ranked a distant second at 14 percent.
In the affluent Maryland suburbs of Montgomery and Howard counties,
where more than 60 percent of whites hold college degrees, Trump
claimed a smaller 40 percent share of the Republican vote. It was
still enough for a first-place finish over Cruz and Kasich.
Fred Stubbs, 72, a retired accountant from Potomac, Maryland, said
he voted for Trump on Tuesday because he believed the real estate
mogul would improve the country's standing in the world. He added
that when he traveled to New York, he regularly dined in restaurants
in buildings owned by Trump.
"I've always admired him as a businessman," Stubbs said.
(Additional reporting by Chris Kahn in New York; Editing by Richard
Valdmanis and Peter Cooney)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
