Party of Educational Elites
The recent gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey produced very different results for the Republican nominees, but exit polling showed identical patterns when it came to electoral divisions based on education level. In both states, the GOP nominees—Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey—won solid margins among all voters who never earned college degrees.
In fact, the Democrats only did well among that small minority of the population who reported some form of “postgraduate” education. Leaving out such people with advanced educational credentials, Cuccinelli beat McAuliffe by 3 points, but the Democrat’s 22 point advantage among “postgraduate” voters gave him his narrow victory.
These results indicate that far from representing the toiling masses or the downtrodden, the Democrats have increasingly become the party of educational and economic elites.