![]() Kay Hagan led by 6 points in North Carolina Sen. In the NBC/Marist Polls, Iowa Democratic nominee Bruce Braley led among those well-educated white women by 5 points Sen. In all five of those races, the Democratic (or in the case of Kansas, independent) candidate ran better, usually much better, with college-educated white women than with any of the three other groups of whites. (NBC and the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion also surveyed South Dakota, but the poll found that Republicans have reestablished a wide lead there.) On Sunday, the NBC/Marist Poll released results in five hotly competitive Senate races: Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, and Iowa. One revealing way to analyze the preferences of white voters is to divide them into a quadrant of four groups that combines race and education: white men and women with and without a four-year college degree. With whites, the results are also following familiar patterns. This year, Democrats continue to post big advantages among minority voters in both the national polling (where the Pew and ABC/ Washington Post surveys each show them leading Republicans in the generic congressional ballot by just over 4-to-1) and the state surveys (where African-Americans are providing the party lopsided margins in Arkansas and North Carolina.) But minorities are relatively less numerous in many of the states that will decide Senate control. They reinforce the portrait of a modern Democratic coalition that is demographically and geographically better positioned to compete for the White House than to consistently control majorities in Congress-and a Republican coalition that faces the opposite problem. ![]() Yet in a measure of the party's vulnerability, even that advantage rests on an unsteady foundation: National Pew Research Center and ABC/ Washington Post polls conducted in October found that college-educated white women, though strongly preferring Democrats on issues relating to women's health, actually trust Republicans more on both managing the economy and safeguarding the nation's security.īoth the national surveys and recent polls in the key Senate races display strikingly consistent patterns of support that transcend state boundaries-and follow deep grooves of the parties' recent competition. That performance-combined with preponderant leads among minority voters in almost all surveys-represents the Democrats' best chance of overcoming gaping deficits with the remainder of the white electorate in the key contests. But in surveys of both individual Senate races and national preferences on the generic congressional ballot, Democrats are showing stubborn strength with college-educated and single white women. Socially liberal white-collar and single white women look like the fragile last line of defense for Democrats hoping to avoid a Republican sweep in next week's election, according to detailed results from a broad array of new polls.įor the third consecutive election, congressional Democrats are facing the prospect of a decisive rejection by most white voters, including not only white men but also white women who are either married or lack a college degree.
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