Illinois Democrats are ready to leave the Obama years behind them, according to early exit polling Tuesday that showed a plurality of the party’s primary voters in the state say they want the next president to be more liberal than President Barack Obama.
Mr. Obama served four years as senator from Illinois before springboarding to the White House, becoming the first black person to win the presidency in 2008. Four years later he won re-election.
Yet Democratic voters in a number of states say they’re ready to turn the page on his eight years, telling exit pollsters that they want the next president’s policies to “be more liberal than Obama’s.”
In Illinois, that was the position of 42% of voters, according to early exit polling posted by CNN. Just 37% said they wanted to see a return to Mr. Obama’s policies, and 8% said the next president should cool it and be more conservative.
In Florida, which also held its presidential primary Tuesday, Mr. Obama’s reign was more popular. A plurality of 43% said they wanted to see a return to his kinds of policies, while only 36% wanted to go more liberal, according to the early exit polling data.
In both states, a majority of Democratic voters said they backed government-run health insurance that would supplant the private market — akin to the “Medicare for All” plan Sen. Bernard Sanders has championed. Support hit 59% in Illinois and 57% in Florida.
Fox News, which uses a different type of primary polling, found support for a Sanders-style health plan even higher, at 71% in Illinois and 74% in Florida.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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