Exit polls: Different electorate, different outcome for Santorum

The good news for Rick Santorum is that he scored as well if not better among the same voting groups in Illinois that carried him to victory in Alabama a week ago.

The bad news for Santorum is that Illinois is not Alabama.

In both Alabama and Mississippi, about 4 of 5 Republican primary voters described themselves as “very conservative,” and Santorum won that group in both states. In Illinois, fewer than a third of the voters placed themselves in that category, among the lowest of the states that have held primaries or caucuses thus far.

In Alabama, 75% of voters were white evangelical or born-again Christians, a group among which Santorum edged Newt Gingrich by 3 percentage points. That same demographic represented 42% of Illinois voters, though Santorum won a greater percentage of that vote.

The exit polls conducted at voting locations around Illinois showed that Santorum also won among voters earning less than $50,000 a year, those without college degrees, and among voters for whom being a “true conservative” or having a strong moral character was the top consideration.

Mitt Romney swept most of the other categories, en route to a popular vote victory.

Even as some establishment Republicans continue to fret about the extended GOP fight, two-thirds of Illinois Republicans said they’d rather see their candidate win than have the nomination fight end soon. The roughly one-third of voters who want a quick end to the campaign predictably favored Romney, by a margin of 50% to 31% over Santorum.

In a hypothetical head-to-head matchup between Romney and Santorum, the margin would likely have been far closer than it appears to be. Romney would have edged Santorum 46% to 42%, while 10% of respondents say they would not have voted.

michael.memoli@latimes.com
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