Romney May Recapture Upscale Whites for the GOP

In the cold, gray numbers of election returns and exit poll percentages, a reader with some imagination can find clues to people's deep feelings, their hopes and fears, their self-images and moral values.

This is especially true in presidential primaries. In most general elections, 80 percent of voters vote for candidates of the party they prefer. In primaries, voters choose between specific individuals with greater differences in experience, background and character than on issues.

So it has been in this year's contests, featuring candidates most voters didn't know much about and about whom their judgment has often shifted. The lead in national polls has changed 11 times since August.

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 non-college whites by 58 to 40 percent over Barack Obama. George W. Bush did even better in 2004.
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