The 2012 Republican presidential contest sprawled across five time zones Tuesday, from the Sea Islands of Georgia to the Canadian border, from Nantucket to Nome. Millions of Republican voters finally had their say in the protracted presidential race. In interviews, they sounded a theme: They’re frustrated.
GOP unhappiness begins, of course, with President Barack Obama. Republicans want him gone. “He’s got to get out. Got. To. Go,” said Don Lofstrom, 63, voting in suburban Nashville, Tenn.
But many Republican voters also expressed dismay with the campaign they’re witnessing. They’ve seen infighting, negativity and a lack of message discipline among the GOP candidates.
Some have detected ideological wobbliness. Or they’ve stared at the ballot wishing to see a name that just wasn’t there. Barely more than four out of 10 voters in Ohio said they were strongly behind their candidate, according to exit polls.
This is an echo of what many GOP stalwarts have been saying all along: They worry about a lack of enthusiasm for their contenders after months of chaotic campaigning.
On Monday, former first lady Barbara Bush, speaking at a conference on first ladies in Dallas, called the 2012 contest “the worst campaign I’ve ever seen in my life.”
As Super Tuesdays go, this one was fairly modest, just 10 states, none of them on the scale of California or Texas.
For the first time, the presidential candidates had to appeal to a spread-out and culturally disparate electorate, a miniature version of what they would face in November if they win the nomination.
This remains a diverse country, and there are distinct regional differences even within a political party. For example, in Tennessee, three of four voters identified themselves as evangelical in exit polls, compared with only about half in Ohio.
If there was one thing Republicans seemed to agree on Tuesday, beyond the need to oust Obama, it was that the candidates have spent too much time attacking one another. But voters Tuesday also agreed
the economy was the top issue influencing their choice.
And even though the debate in the past few weeks has often involved other issues — like contraception or women in combat — there was little evidence of a gender gap among the leading candidates in several of the major states in play Tuesday, and very few voters mentioned abortion as a deciding factor.
Unemployment in Ohio is at 7.7 percent, lower than the national rate of 8.3 percent. Still, more than half of voters in Ohio considered the economy the most important issue; nearly three in 10 pointed to the federal budget deficit. About three-quarters said they were very worried about the direction of the economy. Voters most concerned about the economy were slightly more likely to support Mitt Romney over Rick Santorum.
Among Georgia voters, where unemployment is above the national average and the foreclosure rate is one of the highest in the country, nearly six in 10 said the economy is the top issue. It also mattered most for nearly six in 10 voters in Massachusetts, which has one of the highest median incomes and low unemployment.
The New York Times contributed to this report.
