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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Republican Voters Cop to Biases in New Poll

DETROIT (CN) - As Michiganders hit the polls Tuesday to choose their nominees for the U.S. presidency, a new report found Donald Trump very popular among less-educated voters.

About 50 percent of voters who hold only a high school education or less are voting for Trump, according to the report disseminated Tuesday by the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University.

Sen. Ted Cruz meanwhile has the fewest supporters in Michigan holding either bachelor's or graduate degrees. Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio polled evenly among graduate-degree-holding voters, but Trump has 50 percent more supporters than Rubio with undergraduate degrees.

Using a sample of 838 people likely voters, the pollsters found that Trump supporters got their information from outlets other than television news.

Matt Grossman, who directs the polling group at MSU, noted in a news conference Monday that voters with lower education tend to get there information from sources, such as reality television.

The voters used in the sample, polled over a month-and-a-half-long period, are certain to participate in Tuesday's presidential primary, Grossman said.

Of this group, 290 said they were likely to vote Republican and 262 were likely to vote Democrat.

"A lot of the election will be a turnout story," Grossman said.

Noting the data showed Trump leading among Republican voters, Grossman predicted: "We are unlikely to see anyone beat Trump."

Echoing the xenophobic traits that have produced the largest backlash against Trump, Republican voters who responded to the poll acknowledged holding negative connotations toward Muslims.

In addition to 17 percent of Republican voters admitting that they prefer white people to blacks or Latinos, 75 percent of them preferred Christians over Muslims.

"So when you see those exit polls where you see that people support Trumps ban on Muslims one reason for that might be that a very large share of the voting Republican electric does have a more negative opinion of Muslims then Christians," Grossman said.

Among Democrats, Grossman said it is a "very close race" between Clinton and Sanders, "well within the margin of error.

What the data does show is that Hillary Clinton is more than twice as popular as Sen. Bernie Sanders among black voters. Among white voters, Sanders has nearly a 10-point advantage over the former secretary of state.

Grossman attributed this data to Clinton campaigning aggressively for minority voters.

The results also show a very definitive trend with women more likely than male voters to support Clinton.

"Older women especially view the first female president as an important sign," Grossman said.

The results showed a very clear difference between older and younger Democratic voters, as well, with older voters demonstrating an overwhelming preference toward Clinton and younger voters toward Sanders.

Grossman attributed this to the older population remembering life under the Clinton administration as a time of job growth and development.

Whereas his survey involved live interviews with voters on land lines and cellphones, Grossman said a recent poll from Fox involved interactive-voice responses, a medium that cannot call cellphones.

Because of this, "there is the possibility is that they are missing a lot of the Sanders supporters who are disproportionally young," Grossman said.

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