“I love the poorly educated!” Donald Trump recently declared.
Sure enough, Trump typically dominates the vote of those who didn’t attend or finish college. John Kasich, on the other hand, typically does horribly among voters without a bachelor’s degree.
In Michigan and New Hampshire, for instance — Kasich’s two best states before Ohio — Trump beat Kasich by 21 points and 39 points, respectively. In Ohio, Kasich lost the non-college-degree vote by only 11 points. Among the third of Ohio voters who attended college but didn’t finish, Kasich was within five points. (He won big among the half of the state that has a college or advanced degree.)
Kasich made a clear appeal to working-class voters in Ohio, as I wrote from the Cleveland suburbs recently. The strong economy in Ohio over the past six years seems to have helped him with that slice of the electorate, which is normally dominated by Trump.
Kasich lost by only seven points among those earning under $50,000. Among those who held economy and jobs as the top issue, Kasich won by 15 points. Among the anti-trade vote, Kasich was within six points. Among those worried about the economy, Kasich won — Trump won this demographic in every other state.
Also interesting: Half of Kasich voters said they would probably or definitely vote for Trump if he were the nominee. This suggests Kasich ate into Trump’s base, as well.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
