In Tuesday’s Republican primary, voters chose the economy as more important than social issues and the ability to defeat President Obama as the top qualification in a candidate. And as the Republican nominating process begins to wend its way into the general election race, about 8 in 10 Wisconsin voters said they thought Mr. Romney would be the party’s standard-bearer, according to preliminary exit poll results. Even Rick Santorum’s supporters do not see a bright future for their candidate — a little more than a fourth expected their candidate to win. As to whether Mr. Romney can draw out the Republican base in the fall, the jury is still out. Most Wisconsin voters said they were just fine with Mr. Romney as the nominee, while nearly 6 in 10 Santorum supporters said they would be dissatisfied. Though Wisconsin has long been proud of its progressive streaks, recent political upheavals — like the influence of the Tea Party movement that propelled Scott Walker, a Republican, into the governor’s seat two years ago — have shifted the landscape. The Republican primary vote was split on Tuesday, with nearly 60 percent saying they belonged to the party, about 30 percent identifying as independents and about 1 in 10 as Democrats (who largely voted for Mr. Santorum). A little more than half said they supported the Tea Party, nearly the same number as other Midwestern states. Mr. Romney won among Tea Party supporters in Wisconsin, a group he has often lost to — or split with — Mr. Santorum. Over all, the state provided friendlier demographic terrain for Mr. Romney than Southern states that have voted so far, with fewer very conservative voters and evangelical Christians. Maryland’s composition was similar among these groups, with Mr. Romney winning all segments except for dividing evangelical Christians, very conservative voters and younger voters with Mr. Santorum. About 3 in 10 said they were “very conservative,” and about the same number identified as “somewhat conservative.” Nearly 4 in 10 said they were moderate or liberal. None of these have shifted appreciably since the 2008 primary. Mr. Romney won all these groups in Tuesday’s election, except for splitting the very conservative voters with Mr. Santorum, a group that was especially troublesome for Mr. Romney in the Southern states. A little less than half of Wisconsin voters said Mr. Romney’s positions were not conservative enough, but more than a third were comfortable with his views. About 3 in 10 voters said Mr. Santorum’s positions were too conservative, while about 4 in 10 said they were about right. In 2008, nearly 4 in 10 voters considered themselves born-again or evangelical Christians, and they overwhelmingly supported Mike Huckabee. This year, about the same number said they were evangelical, and they divided their vote between Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum. The Republican primary has largely been eclipsed by more local political matters in Wisconsin, with Mr. Walker becoming the state’s first governor to face a recall election, set for June. A recent NBC News/Marist poll found that a majority of likely Republican voters said that they were watching the recall election more closely than the presidential primary. Since his election, Governor Walker has become a lightning rod for his attempts to fix the state’s budget through reducing state employee benefits and collective bargaining rights. Tuesday’s exit poll in Wisconsin showed that Republican primary voters overwhelmingly — by about 8 in 10 — approve of Mr. Walker’s job as governor. The NBC/Marist poll found approval for Mr. Walker evenly split. Between the recall election and the presidential race, both parties will be trying to divine whether Wisconsin’s electorate looks more like 2008 or 2010. Though voters supported Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, Democratic candidates have won the state ever since. Al Gore and Senator John Kerry claimed extremely tight victories of less than 1 percentage point. In 2008, Barack Obama won by 14 points over John McCain. But in 2010, Mr. Walker won the governorship by 6 percentage points, largely carried by voters’ disapproval of the Obama administration and a wave of Tea Party enthusiasm.
