RUSH: Let’s look at some of the exit polling data here, folks. Some of this stuff is fascinating to me. Four in 10 Republican primary voters — this is in Wisconsin — said that they were scared of what Donald Trump might do in office. Forty percent of Republican primary voters. Those numbers, however, went up to six in 10 for Cruz and Kasich supporters.
So, for example, people that voted for Ted Cruz, six out of 10 of them said they were scared of what Trump might do in office. Ditto for John Kasich. The Wisconsin GOP scene has been more vehemently anti-Trump than many other states. And, again, that’s I think a factor of this basically becoming a two-man race. Another notable item in the exit surveys. About half of the Wisconsin voters said they wanted somebody who did have experience in elections. Well, now, wait just a second. If that’s true, if half of the Republican primary voters in Wisconsin said they do want somebody that does have experience in elections, that’s almost saying they want somebody that’s an insider. They want somebody that knows the business of politics. It’s certainly not an endorsement of outsiders.
And, according to other exit poll analysis, voters seem to be bucking against the sentiments that Trump has expressed recently about withdrawing from NATO and letting Russia do the fighting against ISIS. In other words, some of the exit poll data out of Wisconsin, “We don’t like that. We don’t like getting out of the world, and we don’t like abandoning these security organizations that literally are us.”
Half of Wisconsin voters said that they thought the US should be more active in world affairs. Sixty-six percent of Republican voters made their decision before this week. Here are some other things. This is from John Fund at the National Review Corner. “For the first time in a primary, exit polls showed Cruz clearly won voters who considered themselves ‘somewhat conservative.’ That is a sign he can expand his coalition from a hard-right base,” to people that are somewhat conservative. That’s considered to be noteworthy. That constitutes Cruz broadening his base.
“He also performed adequately with Republican moderates, who made up a quarter of the electorate. Trump normally carries moderates easily, but last night he won only 40% of their votes, with Cruz getting 29% and John Kasich 28%.” That’s still a huge Trump win in moderates. But Fund here is saying that the inroads that Cruz made in that number are huge.
So, again, people look at momentum here rather than direct outcome. John Kasich’s voters — I guess there were enough of them to exit poll. What did Kasich get, Snerdley? Do you know what the…? (interruption) Okay. He got 13%. So there were enough Kasich voters to exit poll. And Kasich’s voters said they were sympathetic to the argument that only Cruz could stop Trump in Wisconsin, but that didn’t matter. They were voting for Kasich anyway. “TrumpÂ’s signature issues didnÂ’t play all that well in Wisconsin.” Try this.
“Only 6% of voters considered immigration their most important issue, and among the half of Republicans who thought trade cost American jobs [Trump] only won over Cruz by 43% to 42%.” Those are two key issues in the Trump camp, and there’s something that’s not exit poll data that’s hard polling data, and that is… I forget the numbers. But in the last six months, which basically would span the campaign, the support for an actual wall on the Mexican border has gone down, significantly. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, and I can’t recall all of them off the top of my head.
But it’s a significant drop. So you add that to “Only 6% of Wisconsin voters considered immigration their most important issue.” By the way, that’s not unique, either. There have been a couple of other states where immigration has not finished even in the top five, even where Trump has won, even the states where Trump has won. And I think there might be, in that, a little bit of some sort of effect. But the left has portrayed immigration as a racial issue and a lot of people don’t want to go there and don’t want people to think so.
So that number may be a little bit curious.
Also, “Among the 35% of GOP voters who thought the most important issue was whether a particular candidate shared their values…” This question amazes me. This is… I have begun to look at this question in every election exit poll. If I can take you back to 2012, this question, “[Blank] shares my values,” Romney got trounced 81 to 19 on that question by Barack Hussein O. And when I saw that in the first wave of exit polls at around four o’clock on Election Day in 2012, that pretty much told me it was over, that big a spread. You know, elections, votes are really rooted — in a lot of people’s cases — in how people make them feel.
The old actor’s adage is that people never remember what you say, but they never forget how you make them feel. When I saw that Obama beat Romney 81-19 on the question “shares my values,” uh-oh. And here: “Among the 35% of GOP voters who thought the most important issue was whether a particular candidate shared their values, Trump was crushed. He lost that category to Cruz by 66% to 11%.” Shares my values: Cruz, 66%; Trump, 11%. And that’s among, again, 35% of people who think it’s the most important issue. That’s not everybody.
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