Following on from yesterday’s post, the Michigan Republican exit polls also make interesting reading. However, income, class and education are no longer the important variables (though, crudely, it would seem that as you get richer you’re slightly more likely to vote Romney and slightly less likely to vote Huckabee; but that’s not exactly shocking). What’s more interesting is breaking down McCain’s vote.

He was about 9 points behind Romney overall, but lost by 18 points among people who self-identify as Conservative. Republicans supported Romney 41-27; Independents favoured McCain 35-29. Among people who call themselves Moderate, McCain won by 6 points. Evangelical Protestants pushed him into third place, behind Huckabee. He won pro-choice voters by 4 points and lost the pro-life vote by 14.

So, not only is the Republican nomination up in the air, but the viable candidates seem to appeal to completely different wings of the Republican “big tent”. The Bush miracle is that he held such disparate groups together (what do libertarians and Evangelicals have in common? How about neocons and social conservatives?). Where’s the candidate who can do that now? Will social conservatives really vote for Romney? Libertarians for Huckabee? If no one emerges, the Reoublicans may struggle in November.

Update: Further to both my exit poll posts, there’s an excellent article at the National Journal on the relationship between income and voting.

Filed under: election2008, johnmccain, mattclifford, mittromney, uspolitics on January 16th, 2008