Key groups propel Romney to victories in Wisconsin, Maryland

Key groups propel Romney to victories in Wisconsin, Maryland

Maryland was a runaway, but Santorum made it close in Wisconsin.

Exit Poll data:

11% of the voters in the Wisconsin Republican primary identified themselves as Democrats, and that group voted overwhelmingly for Santorum. Because of that, those people who "strongly oppose" the Tea Party preferred Santorum 2-to-1, while those who "strongly support" the Tea Party went overwhelmingly for Romney (50 to 38). The votes from that "false Republican" group appear to be part of a strategy designed to create the weakest possible opponent for Obama. Because of that crossover vote, the Wisconsin exit polls contain a bizarre anomaly. Self-identified "somewhat conservatives" split 54-36 for Romney, while liberals split 37-33 for Santorum. Take that, logic!

Romney, a Mormon, also crushed the Catholic Santorum in the Catholic vote 47-35. I have no explanation for that one.

37% of the voters said they made their choice based on who can beat Obama, and 2/3 of those votes went to Romney. Romney therefore took a 25-8 edge from those voters (with the other four points distributed between the other two candidates), but lost the other voters to Santorum, 18-30, making the final count 43-38. In other words, Republican voters are deciding to go with Romney in general because they think he's their best shot at winning, but if they ignore that factor, they would really prefer Santorum by a comfortable margin.

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Romney picked up 55 of the 58 delegates available from the primaries in those two states. Santorum got the other three.

Gingrich appears to be out of steam. In Wisconsin he got half as many votes as Ron Paul.

(Paul continues to run very well in the 18-29 age group. In Wisconsin, Paul pulled more votes than Santorum from that demographic group, and was just a hair behind Romney.)