Trump triumphs, thanks to well-off, educated voters

WEALTHY, well-educated voters helped carry Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump to victory in this week’s east coast primaries, a demographic the famously blunt-spoken billionaire had struggled to attract in the past.

His sweep of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island on Tuesday included wins in some of the richest and best-educated counties in the US and added to victories in his more traditional strongholds of white working-class neighbourhoods.

Exit polls from Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland showed Trump winning about half of the Republican voters with college degrees, and more than half the Republican voters making more than $100 000 (R1.4-million) a year.

Randall Miller, a professor of American politics at Saint Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania, said: “On its face, it is hard to believe he would be improving with a demographic group that has been so averse to his style, his denigrating language. But I think people may have got used to Trump.

“He’s not as outrageous as he used to be,” he said.

Familiarity with the businessman’s brand in the northeast might also have helped him.

Still, the five states could be an uphill battle for Republicans in the November 8 presidential election.

The last Republican presidential nominee to win any of them was George Bush senior in 1988.

The challenge for the New York billionaire could be to replicate Tuesday’s performance in other parts of the country as he seeks to lock down his party’s nomination, with 10 state contests remaining.

Nationally, likely voters with a college degree have become increasingly critical of Trump in recent months.

He is also increasingly unpopular with those who make more than $100 000 a year.

But with Trump far ahead of his rivals, Texas US Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, Miller said Republican voters of all stripes might become more resigned to voting for Trump.