Trump’s VA Win Bad Omen for Hillary

How bad is it for Democrats this year?

Take Virginia, a purple state that serves as a microcosm for the kind of diverse, evenly matched states that will be must-wins in 2016. Once solidly Republican, Virginia has trended Democratic in recent years. President Obama carried it twice, and it has two Democratic senators and a Democrat in the governor’s mansion.

But that may be about to change, at least in the presidential election.

The numbers from exit polls — and the sheer turnout on Super Tuesday — suggest a tectonic shift in enthusiasm from the Democrats to the Republicans since 2008. Then-Sen. Obama won on the Democratic side by stirring the imagination of voters and Sen. John McCain took the GOP primary — without stirring much of anything. That year, 985,000 Democrats went to the polls, while only 489,000 voted in the GOP primary.

But on Tuesday, more than a million people voted in the Republican primary, compared to 776,000 who voted Democrat.

What’s more, exit polls Tuesday showed 29 percent of GOP primary voters were independents, up from 21 percent in 2008. The independent share of the Democratic primary was unchanged at 22 percent.

Republican Donald Trump won the Virginia primary Tuesday across demographics and amid heavy turnout, signs that bode well for him should he become the Republican nominee. Big, diverse states like Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania were all close calls in 2012, and Trump’s Virginia success story could portend wins such critical states.

“Certainly, Virginia’s a state that’s in play in November,” said Martin Cohen, a political science professor at James Madison University. “Especially on the Republican side, if you can win in Virginia, you’ve got a broad base of support … A Republican that wins Virginia can claim to have won a pretty diverse state.”

If Sen. Marco Rubio were going to break his losing streak, this should have been the place. Exit polls indicated that voters in Virginia were less angry, less desirous of an outsider and less in search of a candidate who “tells it like it is” than those in Nevada. They also were less supportive than South Carolina Republicans of the idea of deporting most illegal immigrants and temporarily banning Muslims.

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Exit polls also indicated that 60 percent of Virginia voters in the GOP primary had at least a college degree. That is higher than in most states. It is a demographic that Trump has done less well with, and in Virginia, Rubio finished first among them.

Virginia also had a smaller share of very conservative voters than some other states that have voted so far. That is another group where Trump has not done as well, compared with moderate and somewhat conservative voters.

Yet Trump still won the state, an indication that he can win anywhere. Smart Democrats are no doubt somberly taking note.

To win Virginia in November, the Republican nominee likely will have to outperform 2012 nominee Mitt Romney in the vote-rich, Democratic-leaning jurisdictions in Northern Virginia. Trump, who ran up wide margins in the Republican-dominated parts of the state on Tuesday, did less well in the Washington suburbs. But Rubio carried Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties, as well as Alexandria. The Florida senator also won the city of Richmond and neighboring Henrico County, which both went for Obama four years ago in the general election.

[lz_table title=”Virginia Turnout Turnaround” source=”Election returns”]2008 primaries
Democratic primary,986K
Republican primary,489K
|2016 primaries*
Democratic primary,776K
Republican primary,1.02M
|*incomplete results
[/lz_table]

Those areas will have far bigger turnout in the general election, and many of them will be liberal. The population has become so large in Northern Virginia that Obama was able to defeat Republican Mitt Romney despite winning only a handful of counties and municipalities.

Republicans are likely be heartened by the overall participation numbers. Following a trend that has been taking place all year long, more voters cast ballots in the Republican primary Tuesday.

At a news conference, Trump said excitement over his campaign would carry the party to victory in November.

“There’s much less enthusiasm for the Democrats,” he said. “We are going to be a much bigger party. And you can see that happening … That hasn’t happened to the Republican Party in many, many decades.”

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Looking ahead to the rest of the primary calendar, the Virginia results hold positive signs for Trump as the race moves to other large, diverse states. In Ohio and Florida, he likely will face even friendlier terrain, demographically. Nearly half of Virginia voters had household incomes greater than $100,000. That is 19 percentage points higher than in Florida and Ohio in 2012.

In 2012, Virginia had the highest percentage of college graduates in the primaries of any state where exit polls were conducted. Compared to Virginia’s 60 percent, the share of college graduates in Ohio is just 45 percent and in Florida, 50 percent.