Exit Polling from Pennsylvania Shows Victory for Clinton

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


pennsylvania-map.jpg PHILADELPHIA, PA — I’m at the Park Hyatt in downtown Philadelphia, the location of Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight. The networks have the race too close to call, so it will probably be a while before Clinton takes the stage here, or Obama takes the stage in Indiana, where he is spending the night. [Update: Networks call it for Clinton. Margin of victory remains to be seen.]

While we’re waiting, let’s take a look at some exit polling, shall we? Note that if these are the early exit polls, many voters who headed to their polling places after they got off work are not represented here. For more accurate numbers, wait until the real results roll in. Duh.

As David notes below, women were a stunning 58 percent of all Democratic voters and went for Clinton. Men were just 42 percent of voters and went for Obama. David crunches the numbers and says the final result should be a Clinton win by three points. The spinsters in both campaigns and the talking heads will expend much energy telling us which candidate gets to call that a victory.

Looking at some demographics….

Voters under 40 went for Obama. Voters over went for Clinton. Voters between 18 and 24 (i.e. college students) went almost 70-30 for Obama, but they were a scant six percent of the voters today. Among white voters, those under 30 years of age split evenly for Obama and Clinton. All white voters over 30 went for Clinton, with the margins increasing as age increases. Two-thirds of white voters over 60 years of age went for Clinton.

All told, whites were 80 percent of voters and went for Clinton 60-40. Blacks were 14 percent of voters and went 92-8 for Obama. White women, Clinton’s best demographic sub-slice, made up a whopping 47 percent of all voters.

Just over half of voters said the economy is the most important issue in the election. Clinton won those voters. Just over one-quarter said the war is the most important issue. Obama won those voters. The remaining voters said health care was the most important issue, and went for Clinton.

Clinton won those without college degrees and those making less than $50,000. Obama won their more educated, richer counterparts. Combine those facts with the age numbers above and it’s clear: Clinton’s 50/50 voters delivered again!

Geographically, Obama killed in Philly and its suburbs, but lost in Pittsburgh and the middle of the state.

Only 54 percent of voters said Clinton is “honest and trustworthy.” Sixty-seven percent of voters think that of Obama.

Interestingly, 10 percent of voters think neither Clinton or Obama is trustworthy. Those voters went 77-22 for Clinton — perhaps a sign of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos. Counterargument: 11 percent of respondents identified as conservatives, and they split pretty evenly between the two candidates. Keep in mind, if trying to draw any conclusions here, that any Republicans sneaky enough to change their party affiliations in order to screw with the Democratic race probably aren’t going to be honest with exit pollsters.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate