Trump a polarizing force on minds of midterm voters
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was a dominant force in the 2018 midterm elections as attitudes toward the polarizing leader influenced the decisions of more than 6 in 10 voters.
Nearly 40 percent of voters cast their ballots to express opposition to the president, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate, and about 25 percent said they voted to express support for Mr. Trump.
Although Mr. Trump is not on the ballot, his controversial presidency has animated voters on both sides of the aisle, with 2018 likely to set turnout records for a midterm election. Democrats have been activated in opposition to Mr. Trump since the moment of his election, while in recent weeks Mr. Trump has driven Republicans to the polls by trying to cast the race as a referendum on his administration. The outcomes of Tuesday’s races, which will determine control of Congress, stand to alter the course of the Trump presidency.
The snapshot of who voted and why comes from preliminary results of VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 115,000 voters and about 22,000 nonvoters conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.
Democrats looking to seize control of Congress have pinned their hopes on women and minority voters, and Republicans have hoped to retain majorities by preserving support among the bloc of voters who propelled Mr. Trump to the White House in 2016.
According to VoteCast, women voted considerably more in favor of their congressional Democratic candidate: About 6 in 10 voted for the Democrat, compared with 4 in 10 for the Republican. Men, by contrast, were more evenly divided in their vote.
Urbanites voted almost 2 to 1 in favor of Democrats, and small-town and rural voters cast votes for Republicans by a smaller margin.
In suburban areas, where key House races will be decided, voters skewed significantly toward Democrats by a nearly 10-point margin.
Non-white voters cast ballots for Democrats by a roughly 3-to-1 margin.
Democrats needed to gain a net of at least 23 seats in the House and two seats in the Senate to win majorities in the respective chambers.
Ahead of the election, both parties claimed the emotionally charged debate over the confirmation of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would motivate their supporters to turn out. Justice Kavanaugh faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct from his youth that he denied.
According to VoteCast, half of voters said the tumultuous process was very important to their vote and they broke for the Democratic House candidate. Still, an overwhelming majority of voters in both parties said the Kavanaugh debate was at least somewhat important to their vote.
Both parties’ closing messages appeared to have animated their respective bases, according to VoteCast, with health care and immigration each described as the most important issues in the election by about 25 percent of voters. Of those who listed health care as the most important issue facing the nation, about 3 in 4 voted for the Democratic candidate. About the same percentage who described immigration as the most important issue cast ballots for the Republican.
Opposition to Mr. Trump proved to be more a motivating factor for Democrats than support for the president a factor for Republicans. Still, Republican voters tended to be overwhelmingly supportive of the president.
More voters disapproved of Mr. Trump’s job performance than approved — a finding that is largely consistent with recent polling.
Voters scored Mr. Trump positively on the economy and for standing up “for what he believes in.” But the president received negative marks from voters on temperament and trustworthiness.
Still, about one-third of voters said Mr. Trump was not a factor in their votes. By comparison, 25 percent said a reason for their vote was to express support for Mr. Trump, and 38 percent said they voted to express opposition to Mr. Trump.
For Ronald J. Hadley Jr., it was all about Mr. Trump, even though the president’s name was not on the ballot.
“I am, and I think the silent majority is, fed up. I’m very Republican and very conservative, and I think we’re getting four more years of that. And if we don’t, we’ve got problems,” said Mr. Hadley, 58, of Parsippany-Troy Hills, N.J.
Mr. Hadley, retired from a job as a night foreman of a school custodial staff, said he hadn’t voted in years until he heard Mr. Trump in 2016. Mr. Hadley embraces Mr. Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and voted Republican Tuesday so the president will have the support in Congress to continue his policies. “I agree with Trump. ... You’ve got to take this country back.”
Morris Lee Williams, a 67year-old member of Zion Travelers Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis and an Army veteran, said he’s worried the country “is going down the tubes.”
‘’We’ve forgotten our decency. We’ve forgotten the truth. We’re supposed to be a group of people, Americans, who are supposed to be that light in the world. Instead of a light, it’s turned into a nightmare.”
Mr. Williams said Mr. Trump is the catalyst “for a lot of crazy stuff going on, inciting people into hatred, to doing things that go against what this country stands for. It’s just so divisive. It’s almost as if he wants the country to go back to the way it was in the 1920s and before.”
With the final days of the 2018 campaign interrupted by a spate of politically motivated attempted bombings and a massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, about 2 in 10 Democratic and Republican voters think their own party’s way of talking about politics is leading to an increase in violence.
In the race for Congress, Republican candidates had an apparent advantage over Democratic candidates among white voters nationwide.
The Democrats were preferred among black voters and also had a sizable advantage among Hispanic voters. College graduates leaned toward Democrats, while those without a college degree were divided.
Health care was at the forefront of voters’ minds: 27 percent named it as the most important issue facing the country in this year’s midterm elections. Smaller shares considered immigration (23 percent), the economy (19 percent), gun policy (8 percent) and the environment (7 percent) to be the top issue.
Nationally, 70 percent of registered voters who chose not to vote in the midterm election were younger than 45. A wide share of those who did not vote — 80 percent — did not have a college degree. About as many nonvoters were Democrats (32 percent) as Republicans (32 percent).