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As most analysts have asserted, they are, as a group, trouble for Obama — in mid-August Romney led 48-35 — but there were interesting regional differences. Romney led Obama by a staggering 40 points in the South (62-22) while Obama actually led Romney 44-38 in the Midwest (hello, auto industry rescue?), and the two candidates were nearly tied in the West and Northeast. White working-class Protestants favor Romney 2-1, while Catholics are evenly split. Likewise, Romney clobbers Obama with men, but the candidates are tied for the votes of women. And younger white working-class voters support Obama.
A pattern emerges: Obama is doing surprisingly well with white working-class voters — but he may have to write off most older, Southern, white working-class Protestant men.
Overall, the study debunks lots of stereotypes: These non-college-educated whites are just about as likely as the college-educated to strongly identify with the Tea Party (13 vs. 10 percent), or to say the group shares their goals (34-31). Only one in 20 say abortion or same-sex marriage is the most important issue deciding their vote. More (50 percent) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases than illegal (45 percent.) Maybe surprisingly (at least to the Catholic bishops), a solid majority (56 percent) of white working-class Catholics think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 53 percent of Protestants think it should be illegal in all or most cases. They are just about as religiously observant as college-educated whites, although they are much more likely to identify as evangelical Protestants.
The study also confounds those who believe white working-class voters consistently vote against their own economic interests: Those who received food stamps in the last two years preferred Obama to Romney 48 to 36 percent, while two-thirds of those who hadn’t preferred Romney.
Oh, and this is fun: “Equal numbers of white working-class Americans (28 percent) and white college-educated Americans (27 percent) identify Fox News as their most trusted media source.”
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