How did this happen?

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And of course had all the votes been counted, the first candidate would have won.

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And of course had all the votes been counted, the first candidate would have won.

Even if that were true, why would it have been close in the first place?

I suppose it's because uneducated Christian conservatives will vote for the more conservative candidate no matter what, and this group constitutes a large percentage of the electorate.

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I suppose it's because uneducated Christian conservatives will vote for the more conservative candidate no matter what, and this group constitutes a large percentage of the electorate.

Get your nose out of the air.

Yeah, I'd characterize these people more as willfully ignorant rather than uneducated. :-) Seriously though, both parties have their share of this type of people. South Memphis, for instance, is probably 95%+ Democratic (super-Christian as well) and I don't think too many voters there are terribly informed. It's just the nature of democracy.

Yeah, I'll admit it does happen on both sides. What is interesting, though, is that among white voters, there is a significant positive relationship between education level and support for liberal ideas and Democratic politicians.

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Social liberalism may be popular among the well educated, but economic liberalism is not.

Definitely some social issues like gay rights have a strong relationship with educational attainment. Most state's exit polls on gay marriage bans show a direct, linear relationship between the two variables.

Part of the issue with economic liberalism is that the well-educated tend to also be high-income. I would wager that even economic liberalism is more popular (though not as dramatically as social liberalism), among the highly educated once income is controlled for.