DEMOCRACY, ABORTION, IMMIGRATION: For US voters, there were a range of issues that helped make up their minds when they went to the ballot – and a snapshot exit poll shows which of these were the most important.
In the US, exit polls are conducted at about 500 polling sites, but these surveys are also supplemented by phone interviews to capture opinions from early and postal voters too.
The most used exit polls are those conducted by Edison Research on behalf of a consortium of news networks, including CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
They paint a picture of how different demographics voted and what the key issues were that determined the election result.
Exit polls showed that 56% of Harris voters cited the state of democracy as the single most important issue to them.
Meanwhile, only 12% of Trump supporters said it was their number one priority.
Trump’s loss in the 2020 election was followed by insurrection at the US Capitol, which shook the nation.
Early on in the count today, Trump began raising suspicion among his supporters about the legitimacy of the election, taking to his social media to report “talk about massive CHEATING in Philadelphia” last night. The city’s police department told CNN there have been no issues with voting that required a law enforcement response.
Particularly towards the end of her campaign, Harris labelled Trump a threat to democracy, and even a fascist.
Her remarks followed revelations from Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly, about the former president’s praise for Adolf Hitler and his military during World War II.
One of the Republican Party’s greatest criticisms of the Biden administration is that things have gotten more expensive for consumers.
That’s certainly voters’ perception. ABC/Ipsos polls showed 67% of voters believe the economy is in bad shape, while 45% say their own financial situation is worse now than four years ago.
The “worse off” number exceeds its 2008 level, then 42%, and far outpaces what it was in 2020 (20%) and 2016 (28%).
This perception of the economy being in bad shape contradicts some of the facts: at the same time, the economy continues to grow despite inflation. Consumer confidence and spending have also only grown in recent months.
For Trump supporters, economy is king, with half saying it’s the issue most important to them.
Preliminary exit polls showed Trump is more trusted than Harris when it comes to the economy.
Abortion rights have become a huge issue in the US since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade in June 2022, which had stood since 1973.
In this election, ten states were not only voting on their president and House representatives, but on reproductive rights. So far, New York and Maryland have voted in favour of enshrining the right to abortion in their constitutions. Florida has voted against it and the rest are still too early to call.
One national exit poll found that a third of the population believe abortion should be legal in all cases, while a further third said it should be allowed in only some cases. Some 25% of voters said it should be illegal in most cases and 6% said it should never be allowed.
Women were more than twice as likely to think abortion should be legal than men.
A fifth of Harris voters said it was the issue most important to them going into polling stations, while only 6% of Trump supporters said the same.
When you look at Harris voters’ views on abortion, they’re unsurprisingly more liberal than the national average. Some 58% said it should be legal in all cases, 34% said it should be legal in most cases, and only 5% believe it should ever be illegal.
In contrast, almost half of Trump supporters say abortion should be illegal in most cases, with just 6% saying it should be legal in all cases.
Among Trump’s most memorable comments on abortion were his false claims that “late-term abortions” were taking place, where babies were even aborted “after birth”.
Harris capitalised on reproductive rights being a hot topic, positioning the recent rollbacks as the first domino in a chain of restrictions on women’s freedoms if Trump wins.
About 11 million people in America are undocumented immigrants – that’s 3% of the population.
One poll said immigration was the second most important issue for Trump supporters at 20%.
Trump has long-abandoned his “build a wall” idea, but he continues to pledge to carry out mass deportations and has taken a strong approach to border security.
The US agency responsible for deportations has voiced concerns about the resources needed to complete such a task, given the cost of arresting, detaining and flying out every person, assuming their country of origin will even take them back. Many don’t.
Trump has repeated false claims about the number of people who crossed the border into America during Biden’s presidency and the amount of them who were murderers.
Harris, on the other hand, focused more on border security and crackdowns on drug smuggling.
A tiny 2% of her supporters said immigration was the most important issue to them.
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