Young and College-Educated Voters Played Key Roles in Democratic Wins on Tuesday

In the wake of midterm elections on Tuesday that generated record levels of early-voter turnout, exit polls and other data have made clear the role that young people, college students, and college-educated adults played in who was elected — and who wasn’t.

Democrats found broad support among younger voters, who favored Democratic House candidates over Republican ones, according to a CNN exit poll. In fact, two out of three voters age 18 to 29 cast ballots for Democrats.

Also apparent: The divide between male and female college-educated voters was stark. Just over half of white college-educated men supported Republicans, compared with about 40 percent of white college-educated women. Of white college graduates, 53 percent voted for Democrats, compared with 45 percent who voted Republican.

Here are three takeaways from the midterms that illustrate the intersection of higher education and voters:

College students helped defeat Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican and self-proclaimed “pro-education governor.”

In Dane County, home of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, voter turnout increased almost 17 percent, compared with 2014, and favored the Democrats, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Voter turnout in student wards at the state’s flagship university also topped 88 percent, a 41-percentage-point increase from 2014, according to a Chronicle analysis of data provided by the city clerk of Madison, Wis.

Tony Evers, who defeated Walker, secured 60 percent of Wisconsin’s under-30 vote, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, known as Circle, at Tufts University. That’s a major jump from the 51 percent of young voters who supported Walker’s Democratic opponent in 2014, Mary Burke.

College-educated white women also voted overwhelmingly for Evers, the state’s superintendent of schools. He drew 60 percent of the vote from college-educated white women, compared with just 43 percent from college-educated white men, according to CNN exit polls. Nonwhite college graduates provided even more dominant support for Evers, with 83 percent of their vote, according to those polls.

College-educated women were a key part of the push that led more than 100 women to be elected to Congress.

White, college-educated women voted by 59 percent in favor of Democratic House candidates, compared with 49 percent in the 2016 election, according to Vox.

Ilhan Omar, who made history as the first Somali-American elected to Congress, swept Minnesota’s Fifth District with 78 percent of the vote, thanks in part to the district’s young, college-educated voters, according to Vox. The Minneapolis-area district is highly educated and home to most of Minnesota’s youngest voters, according to MPRnews. About 45 percent of the area’s residents have bachelor’s degrees.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, at 29 the youngest woman elected to Congress, was also popular with young college-age voters. She secured 78 percent of the vote in New York’s 14th District, where about 30 percent of residents have bachelor’s degrees.

However, college-educated women didn’t always tip the scale for the Democrats. White college-educated women, making up 13 percent of Texas voters, were split down the middle in the governor’s race and voted, 49 percent to 49 percent, in the Senate contest, in which the Democrat, Beto O’Rourke, lost to the incumbent Republican, Ted Cruz, according to ABC exit-poll results.

Voters with associate degrees didn’t vote like others with postsecondary credentials.

CNN’s exit poll showed that, across the nation, people with some college, a bachelor’s degree, or an advanced degree voted Democratic. In fact, advanced-degree holders were the least likely to support Republicans in House races, with nearly two out of three voting for Democrats.

But people with two-year degrees broke away from that voting bloc and supported Republican House candidates at roughly the same percentage, 50 percent, as voters with a high-school education or less.

Exit polls for individual states, however, showed some glimpses of uniformity among those with a postsecondary education. In Michigan, voters with some college or a two-year, four-year, or advanced degree all favored the Democratic candidate for governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who won.

In Georgia’s tight governor’s race, the Democrat, Stacey Abrams, won over the same groups of voters. About half of voters with some college or an associate degree voted for Abrams, while 54 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree and six out of 10 advanced-degree holders did the same. But it may not have been enough for Abrams, who has not conceded but trails her Republican opponent.

Education and the Midterm Voters

Here’s a look at the education and political preferences of voters who cast ballots in the 2018 midterm elections.

Steven Johnson contributed to this article.

Follow Cailin Crowe on Twitter at @cailincrowe, or email her at cailin.crowe@chronicle.com. Audrey Williams June is a senior reporter who writes about the academic workplace, faculty pay, and work-life balance in academe. Contact her at audrey.june@chronicle.com, or follow her on Twitter @chronaudrey.