By Glynn Wilson –

Everyone knows America suffers from a sharp partisan divide. All you have to do is turn on the news on TV or glance at the news feed on Facebook to know that.

But the latest analysis of the data by the Pew Research Center from the midterm elections shows how the country is divided along racial lines, by gender and levels of educational attainment.

There were wide differences in voting preferences between men and women, whites and nonwhites, as well as people with more and less education.

Overall, voters favored Democratic candidates for Congress over Republicans by a margin of about 7 percentage points, according to preliminary estimates. Votes are still being tabulated in some states, so this margin may change slightly as final votes are counted and recounted in states like Florida.

According to other significant results, 49 percent of the nation’s voting-eligible population turned out to vote, which amounts to about 116 million people. That’s nine points above the average of 40 percent for a midterm election, showing that more voters were engaged this time around, probably because of the controversial nature of the Trump presidency and the heightened news coverage about it. (We are still searching to find out exactly how many women voted compared to men, how many whites verses nonwhites, etc. None of the reports seem to have this exact number).

The House

A couple of things are clear. The Democratic Party won a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since 2010, picking up enough seats to hold a majority by at least 228 seats to 198, although 9 races are still undecided.

The Senate

Republicans added to their majority in the Senate, although the margin is still up in the air as key races are still being counted or recounted. The Republicans should hold a majority with at least 52-53 seats out of 100, while the Democrats will hold onto at least 47 seats, with one independent vote they can count on, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The race between incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican challenger Rick Scott in Florida is subject to an automatic recount, and the Senate race in Mississippi must still be decided in a runoff.

Gender Gap

The gender gap in voting preference is nothing new, according to Pew, but it is at least as wide a margin as it has been at any point over the past two decades, according to exit polls by the National Election Pool. The exit polls offer the first look at the electorate and will be refined over time as additional data, such as state voter files, become available.

Also clear is that women overwhelmingly favored the Democratic candidate in their districts by 19 percentage points, 59 percent to 40 percent. A smaller majority of men voted for the Republican by a margin of 51 percent to 47 percent. It is surprising that the overall margin among men was not higher in favor of Republicans. While it is not yet clear, I suspect there are more men voters than women overall.

Racial Divide

The results clearly show sharp divisions across racial lines.

As was the case in the 2016 presidential election, white men voted Republican by a wide margin, 60 percent to 39 percent. This is no surprise, considering Trump’s appeal and the makeup and policy positions taken up the Republican Party candidates nationwide for the past four decades.

What is more surprising is that white women did not overwhelmingly support Democrats. They were equally divided, with 51 percent favoring the Republican and 49 percent favoring Democrats. Perhaps some specific issues in some races contributed to this, including the overall popularity of the candidates themselves.

But African American voters overwhelmingly favored the Democrats. Ninety percent of blacks voted for Democrats, although 10 percent voted for Trump and the Republicans, including 12 percent of black men. Even 8 percent of black women voted Republican.

Education

When you combine gender, race and education in the comparison, women with college degrees stand out for their strong preference of Democrats, with 59 percent favoring the Democrat and just 39 percent voting Republican.

I guess the surprise is that any women with a college education would vote for Trump and the Republicans after all the publicity over sex scandals of late and the constant barrage of statements and tweets from the president that appear to be quite false and purposely divisive by people with a college education. But nearly 40 percent of women with a college education voted for the Republican anyway. If religion were added to the mix, I suspect that white Christian women make up the a majority of the Republican female vote, an inexplicable phenomenon considering Trump’s long history of infidelity and what appears to be the total lack of a moral compass.

It is no real surprise that white voters with less education, especially men, supported Trump and the Republicans. White men with no college degree voted Republican by a two-to-one margin, 66 percent to 32 percent.

Age Divide

The age divide in voting, which barely existed in the early 2000s, also looms large now in American politics. Majorities of voters ages 18 to 29 (67%) and 30 to 44 (58%) favored the Democratic candidate. Voters ages 45 and older were split (50% Republican, 49% Democrat).

Among voters who said this was their first midterm to vote, 62 percent favored the Democrat. Just 36 percent supported the Republican. The surprise is why any young voters would support Trump and the Republicans, considering all the peer pressure exerted by social media. Young voter turnout is another story.

The Trump Factor

As is typically the case with midterm elections, views of the president were a major factor in the way people voted and the outcome. A majority of registered voters, 60 percent, said they viewed their vote as either a vote for or against Trump.

The national exit polls found that more voters, 38 percent, said their midterm vote was to oppose Trump, while 26 percent said it was to support him. Proving that all politics is local and that the one-third rule in American life is still alive and well, one third of voters said Trump was not a factor in their vote.

Results also show a highly significant correlation between voters’ views of the president’s job performance. Among those who approved of the president (45% of all voters), 88 percent voted for the Republican. Among the larger share who disapproved, 54% percent, an overwhelming percentage, 90 percent, voted Democrat.

So to oversimplify and make the results more clear and specific, smart black women overwhelmingly support Democrats. White women are split. Dumbass white men support Trump and the Republicans. Sorry, but that’s what the results show.