The CNN National Exit Poll

[London Man]

http://us.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

Bush gets 42% of Hispanics, 11% of African Americans.

Party ID was 37-37-26.

[Umengus]

the gop mobilisation (+4).  If the turnout is as in 2000, I think that Kerry wins.

And Bush won the catholic vote! (51 vs 48)

The most important issue: moral values (22%), economy (20%), terrorism (19%)

Job approval: 52%

Approve the iraq war: 50%

Iraq part of the war on terrorism?  54% yes

Pro choice: 55%

National economy not good or poor: 52% (it was not economy stupid!)

Right direction? 49% yes

OBL video tape: 56% important (but they voted Kerry)

Fav/def opinion Bush: 52/47
Fav/def opinion Kerry: 48%52 (ouch!)

Bush do strongly better than in 2000 in big cities and smaller cities but he loses in small town.



it's an exit poll. Consequently, I don't know if it's accurate or not.

[dougrhess]

The exit polls that I saw last night seemed to have a very large gender gap in turnout. I thought they had FL and OH in Kerry in those polls, so it will be interesting to see what the insides of them are.

[Vasall des Midas]

Two more tidbits from that:
Bush makes big gains among pensioners.
The "Gender Gap" got smaller and women's turnout was much higher than men's - what really happened is that lots of the "first time" and "first time in ages" voters were Republican-voting women.

[dougrhess]

I wish they asked people how long they stayed in line and when they arrived. It seems that some precints in Ohio had fewer machines than they had in the past. In Louisiana, I heard that they had polling places not yet opened at 2pm.

[AuH2O]

Rove looks like a genius today. Got the hispanics he needed, got the evangelicals... without that first debate it wouldn't have been close at all, and that wasn't Rove's fault.

[dougrhess]

Rove looks like a genius today. Got the hispanics he needed, got the evangelicals... without that first debate it wouldn't have been close at all, and that wasn't Rove's fault.

I think the Catholic vote might also be the issue. The Republicans had links even just for Catholics on their website, and got the Church to reverse it's position on abortion (some said gays, too) being the deciding issue when chosing how to vote.

[patrick1]

Rove looks like a genius today. Got the hispanics he needed, got the evangelicals... without that first debate it wouldn't have been close at all, and that wasn't Rove's fault.

I think the Catholic vote might also be the issue. The Republicans had links even just for Catholics on their website, and got the Church to reverse it's position on abortion (some said gays, too) being the deciding issue when chosing how to vote.

Huh? No comprehende.  The Catholic church was pro-choice???

[dougrhess]

Rove looks like a genius today. Got the hispanics he needed, got the evangelicals... without that first debate it wouldn't have been close at all, and that wasn't Rove's fault.

I think the Catholic vote might also be the issue. The Republicans had links even just for Catholics on their website, and got the Church to reverse it's position on abortion (some said gays, too) being the deciding issue when chosing how to vote.

Huh? No comprehende.  The Catholic church was pro-choice???

No. It didn't in the past make it the deciding issue as some Bishops did this year in their statements. In the past the message was more one of "weigh all the issues".

[The Vorlon]

Give it a few weeks before you really look at the exit polls.

These things are all "post stratified" to match actual turnout, so the do change a fair bit in the next few days.

The first batch are semi-close, but get much better a month out.

[Sam Spade]

What this proved was that a really high turnout does help Republicans.

I've heard that total turnout was 59% of VAP, highest since 1968.

[Mort from NewYawk]

The exit polls were crap, only serving to excite the Democrats and depress the republicans for a few hours, until the Republicans realized how overepresented women were in the polls.

The GOP, to it's credit, kept madly spinning victory, and successfully leaned on the networks not to trust the polls for calling outcomes

As the returns came in, the discrepancies became obvious, the Republicans relaxed, and it was the Democrats' turn to get depressed.

Exit polls are notoriously inaccurate, potentially harmful to the democratic process, and should be abandoned.