The same fundamental dynamic that decided the 2016 Republican presidential primaries is already resurfacing as the 2024 contest takes shape.
As in 2016, early polls of next year’s contest show the Republican electorate is again sharply dividing about former President Donald Trump along lines of education. In both state and national surveys measuring support for the next Republican nomination, Trump is consistently running much better among GOP voters without a college education than among those with a four-year or graduate college degree. …
Though the early 2024 polls have varied in whether they place Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the lead overall (with the latest round tilting mostly toward Trump), that same overriding pattern of educational polarization is appearing in virtually all of those surveys, a review of public and private polling data reveals. …
While the political obstacles facing Trump look greater now than they were then, his best chance of winning in 2024 would likely come from consolidating the “beer track” to a greater extent than anyone else unifies the “wine track” – just as he did in 2016. In each of the past three contested GOP presidential primaries, the electorate have split almost exactly in half between voters with and without college degrees, analyses of the exit polls have found. CONTINUED
Ronald Brownstein, CNN
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