the clearest dividing line in this year<u+2019>s presidential election now falls along<u+00a0>educational<u+00a0>lines: whites without a college degree have consolidated behind donald trump and those with a four-year degree are tending to back hillary clinton. the divide helps explain why mr. trump<u+00a0>pulled his field staff wednesday from virginia<u+2014>essentially ceding a state where polling shows he has been largely abandoned by suburban voters with higher education levels<u+2014>and why he remains competitive in the<u+00a0>swing states of iowa and ohio, which have large shares of noncollege whites. capital journal is wsj.com<u+2019>s home for election 2016 news. mrs. clinton, meanwhile, is ahead<u+00a0>in new hampshire and colorado, home to larger shares of whites with college degrees. the race, to a large extent, will turn on whether mrs. clinton<u+2019>s appeal among whites with college degrees will outweigh mr. trump<u+2019>s appeal among those without them. <u+201c>that<u+2019>s the whole ballgame,<u+201d> said david wasserman, an analyst with the nonpartisan cook political report. if current polling holds, mrs. clinton would be<u+00a0>the first democrat in at least 50 years to win college-educated<u+00a0>whites. republicans have won white voters both with and without degrees in each of the last four elections, with mitt romney in 2012 winning the biggest margins among both groups of any gop nominee since at least 1992. this year, polling shows, college-educated<u+00a0>voters are turning away from mr. trump<u+2019>s aggressive personal style and promises to limit immigration and free trade. the divide has widened recently, amid the release of a 2005 videotape in which mr. trump made lewd comments about women, and could widen further with allegations wednesday<u+00a0>that he touched women inappropriately . mr. trump has denied those allegations . mrs. clinton led among college-educated<u+00a0>whites by 15 percentage points in this week<u+2019>s wall street journal/nbc news national survey, up from her 6-point lead in september. in 2012, mr. romney carried that group by 14 points. mr. trump led among whites without four-year degrees by 23 points in the poll, up from 20 points in september but less than mr. romney<u+2019>s 26-point advantage. mr. trump recently has made efforts to blunt mrs. clinton<u+2019>s gains among college-educated<u+00a0>voters, including announcing a child-care plan. he is trying to reach voters such as mike mccarthy, a retired teacher from alden, n.y. a registered democrat, mr. mccarthy backed barack obama in 2008 but switched his allegiance to mr. romney in 2012. now, he feels stuck. <u+201c>they<u+2019>re both slugs,<u+201d> he said of this year<u+2019>s nominees. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t know why we<u+2019>d want either one of them.<u+201d> the<u+00a0>education<u+00a0>divide among whites could reorder the electoral college, as<u+00a0>education<u+00a0>is proving to be as important a marker of a state<u+2019>s leanings as its share of minority voters, who tend to back democrats. battlegrounds that are most competitive include some racially diverse states<u+2014>among them florida and nevada<u+2014>and overwhelmingly white states, such as iowa and ohio. while they vary in racial makeup, they have one feature in common: large shares of white voters without college degrees. some 72% of white residents over age 24 lack college degrees in both ohio and iowa, the highest shares in 13 of the most competitive states. nevada is close behind, at 71%, with florida at 69%. view interactive battlegrounds that are less competitive also include a mix of racially diverse states<u+2014>colorado and virginia among them<u+2014>as well as overwhelmingly white new hampshire. these less-competitive battlegrounds also have an important characteristic in common: lots of college-educated<u+00a0>white residents. some 48% of white adults 25 and older in colorado have or are seeking college degrees, the largest share among 13 battlegrounds, followed by 43% in virginia and 38% in new hampshire. in virginia, mrs. clinton held a 41-point lead in the populous suburbs around washington, a region where income and education levels are high and which plays a big role in deciding the outcome of elections. mrs. clinton led by 12 points in the state overall, due in large part to a 7-point advantage among whites with college degrees. mr. trump had trouble winning college-educated, white voters in many of the early republican primaries.<u+00a0>he won virginia<u+2019>s gop primary, for example, but not the populous suburbs of washington. in north carolina, he lost counties around raleigh and greensboro. many of those suburban republicans are still holding out on mr. trump. in ohio, where mr. trump leads in recent surveys, a wall street journal/nbc news/marist poll in august found mrs. clinton improving on her party<u+2019>s 2012 showing in high-education<u+00a0>regions, while mr. trump was building strong support in areas with large numbers of whites without college degrees. in the 10-county columbus area, where<u+00a0>education<u+00a0>levels are relatively high, mrs. clinton posted a 14-point lead over mr. trump in the poll. in the last election, president barack obama won the region by 6 points. a 19-county area in northern ohio, where<u+00a0>education<u+00a0>levels are lower, was moving further toward the gop, the poll suggested. mrs. clinton led mr. trump there by only 1 percentage point, compared with the 10-point margin that mr. obama posted in the last election. the opportunity for mr. trump is that turnout among working-class, white voters has plenty of room to grow. some<u+00a0>47 million whites<u+00a0>without a college degree were eligible to vote in 2012 and didn<u+2019>t turn out, including 24 million men, <u+201c>which is pretty much his demographic,<u+201d> says mr. wasserman. only 52% of those men voted in 2012, he said, compared<u+00a0>with about 77% of college-educated<u+00a0>white voters of both genders. the challenge for mr. trump is that many of those men aren<u+2019>t registered to vote, and his campaign hasn<u+2019>t built an extensive ground operation in swing states to register them. the widening<u+00a0>education<u+00a0>gap, if it holds, would stand as a landmark in the repositioning of the nation<u+2019>s two main political parties. <u+201c>it used to be that better-educated<u+00a0>voters, particularly college-educated<u+00a0>voters, were the rock of the republican base,<u+201d> said whit ayres, a republican polling expert whose clients include sen. marco rubio (r., fla.). from the new deal era until about 2000, democratic candidates consistently did better among whites without college degrees than those with them. more recently, college-educated<u+00a0>voters have aligned more strongly with the democratic party and liberal causes, polling has shown, an advantage that grows substantially among the most<u+00a0>educated<u+00a0>voters, those with postgraduate degrees. as a result, republicans in presidential elections have carried the<u+00a0>nine<u+00a0>states in which white residents older than age 24 are least likely to hold a college degree. those include kentucky, mississippi, arkansas and west virginia. democrats have carried the<u+00a0>10<u+00a0>states in which white residents are most likely to have a four-year degree, among them massachusetts, hawaii, maryland, colorado and connecticut. <u+2014>michelle hackman contributed to this article. write to dante chinni at dante.chinni@wsj.com
voters<u+2019> education level a driving force this election  - wsj
aaron zitner