Among Democrats, the voters were nearly all white in MA and Vermont, a majority black in Alabama and Georgia and more than one-third Hispanic in Texas. About half of Democratic voters there said they want the next president to change to more liberal policies. Likewise about half of all Republican voters who consider themselves independent said they cast their ballots for Trump.
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Clinton was boosted in Virginia by strong support from women and the vast majority of voters polled who said they preferred experience in politics over an outsider.
Democratic voters are not as divided on candidates as Republicans.
Trump also won six in 10 of those who don’t have a college degree – no one else was close.
Democratic voters were also less likely than their Republican counterparts to say their candidates’ attacks were unfair. An overwhelming number of voters who valued experience above other qualities selected Clinton, as did about three in four who considered the ability to defeat the Republican nominee in November.
The negative sentiments popped up all around the country: The dissatisfied outnumbered the angry and accounted for half or more of Republican voters in Virginia, Vermont and MA.
Based on exit polls, ABC News projects that Sanders will win the Vermont Democratic primaries. Trump led in all of those categories, but was most dominant among the almost 1 in 5 Republican primary voters who called immigration the most important issue. And from Cruz’s home state of Texas-where he emerged the victor-to states delivering Trump big Super Tuesday victories including Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, the pattern was the same: If Republicans said it was most important that a presidential candidate share their values, they tended to prefer Cruz. Sanders, by contrast, had led among all voters under age 45 in the first three contests of the year, in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Democratic voters largely decided that Sanders was not too liberal for them, nor was Clinton not liberal enough.
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The survey was conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research as voters left their polling places at 25 randomly selected sites in MA. In each of those states, about a third of Democratic voters or less want a switch to more liberal policies. In Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas, the results also include telephone interviews early and absentee voters. The results among all those voting in each contest have a margin of sampling error ranging from plus or minus 4 percentage points to plus or minus 7 percentage points.
