Of all the different demographic and political categorizations which exit polls ask about, there have been three, this Democratic primary season, which have shown by far the largest divides between Hillary and Bernie supporters. Age, race/ethnicity and party ID.

As nobody who spends time here needs to be explained, older voters, non-white voters (and especially African-Americans) and Democrats have gone for Hillary in almost every primary, often by huge margins, while younger voters, whites and independents have gone for Bernie in most states, regularly by equally impressive margins. The only thing that might surprise regular visitors here is the extent to which these divisions overshadow all others, for example by gender or ideology. (That's the link you want to click if you're intrigued by the header image of this diary, by the way.)

The only other divide that has come near the same salience is that between those who attend religious services on a weekly basis and those who attend only occasionally or never — but that question was only asked in four states (up through Super Tuesday, at least), all of them in the South, and seems to have de facto served as something of a proxy for race/ethnicity.

Since age, race/ethnicity and party ID play such an outsized role in determining the preferences of the primary electorate, what can we say in this respect about the five major states that will be voting on March 15?

Between now and then, only the Northern Mariana Islands will be choosing 11 delegates for the Democratic convention, and the results for the global Democrats Abroad primary should be getting in too, and that's 21 delegates. But on March 15, primary voters in five populous states will elect 792 pledged delegates — no less than 17% of the full convention count: 246 from Florida, 182 from Illinois, 159 from Ohio, 121 from North Carolina, and 84 from Missouri. I've gone back and looked up what the electorate looked like in those states back in the 2008 Democratic primaries, and thought I'd share:

2008 DEMocratic PRIMARY ELECTORATE IN MAJOR UPCOMING STATES % OVER 50 % NON-WHITE % DEMOCRAT FLORIDA 61% 34% 79% ILLINOIS 44% 43% 79% MISSOURI 49% 24% 73% NORTH CAROLINA 55% 38% 76% OHIO 46% 24% 69% compare

(also '08 data): nevada n/a 35% 81% massachusetts 51% 15% 65%

There were lots of older voters in Florida, and to a lesser extent North Carolina — advantage Hillary. More whites in Missouri and Ohio — advantage Bernie. Fewer Democrats in Ohio too. All in all, based on these numbers, Ohio should be the best state for Bernie — and perhaps surprisingly, Missouri would come next when you purely look at these demographics.

I've added in the exit poll data (from 2008, not this year!) from Nevada and Massachusetts, since those two races were close this year, and might therefore suggest benchmarks of sorts. I would have added Michigan, but the 2008 Democratic primary in Michigan was all weird.

The comparison suggests a somewhat uphill fight for Bernie, mostly because the five upcoming states are a lot less white than Massachusetts. They are comparable to Nevada when it comes to the non-white share of the vote, but "non-whites” in this context may be altogether too broad a category, considering Bernie does a lot worse among blacks / better among Latinos, relatively speaking. It might therefore make sense to break this down further:

2008 DEMocratic PRIMARY ELECTORATE IN MAJOR UPCOMING STATES WHITE BLACK LATINO FLORIDA 66% 19% 12% ILLINOIS 57% 24% 17% MISSOURI 76% 17% 4% NORTH CAROLINA 62% 34% 2% OHIO 76% 18% 4% compare

(ALSO '08 DATA): nevada 65% 15% 15% massachusetts 85% 6% 5%

Ohio and Missouri were strikingly similar in this regard. The Democratic primary electorate in both states was whiter, in 2008, than in Nevada — the share of black voters was comparable but there were many fewer Latinos — but they were less white than Massachusetts, with a larger share of black voters.

The other three states were all about as white as Nevada or less white than that, and much less white than Massachusetts. In addition, the balance between black and Latino share of the vote leaned more to the former than in either Nevada or Massachusetts. That would make them tougher to get for Bernie than Ohio or Missouri. North Carolina would seem the toughest of the three, in this respect.

Based purely on the numbers on race/ethnicity, Florida would seem most promising after Ohio and Missouri — but there is a snag. Let's break down the age category a bit more:

2008 DEMocratic PRIMARY ELECTORATE IN MAJOR UPCOMING STATES 17-29 30-64 65+ FLORIDA 9% 63% 28% ILLINOIS 15% 70% 15% MISSOURI 14% 66% 19% NORTH CAROLINA 15% 66% 20% OHIO 15% 70% 14% COMPARE

(ALSO '08 DATA): nevada 13% n/a n/a massachusetts 13% 67% 19%

There's not a whole lot to see here — most states were very similar — with one clear exception. Florida. Democratic voters there were disproportionately old in ‘08, presumably thanks to all the snowbirds. And considering how large the age gap has consistently been in primaries so far, this should favor Hillary.

All in all, then, if past is prologue and we look only at these key indicators, Ohio and Missouri might be close, while the other three states present more of an advantage to Hillary. But as Michigan proved, one can always be surprised.