College-educated white voters are overwhelmingly supporting Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race, even though the Republican Party has carried the group in presidential races for several decades and Mitt Romney won the demographic in the 2012 race, according to a new
Bloomberg Politics/Purple Slice online poll.
Among white voters with at least a college degree, but no post-graduate degree, which represented more than one-third of voters in 2012:
- Clinton, 48 percent;
- Trump, 37 percent;
- Romney won in 2012 by 14 points.
And among all college-educated likely voters, including those with post-graduate degrees, a group that represented 47 percent of the 2012 electorate:
- Clinton, 54 percent;
- Trump, 32 percent;
- President Barack Obama held a 2-point advantage in 2012.
Other polls, however, show Trump faring better among white voters without college degrees than Romney attracted.
But no Democratic presidential candidate has won the majority of college-educated white voters since 1952, according to according to American National Election Studies data and exit polls reported by
The Atlantic.
"It's extremely hard for any presidential candidate to win an election conceding double-digit deficits among segments of the electorate that their party has competed for and won in the past," said pollster Doug Usher, who led the
survey.
"This poll indicates that Trump might be doing just that."
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