Tipsheet

Exit Polls Results Are In. Here's How Things Are Looking.

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  November 05, 2024 5:27 PM

We have the first exits for the 2024 race, and one thing is clear: people are angry. Seventy-two percent of voters are angry or dissatisfied with the country's state. Only 41 percent of voters approve of Joe Biden’s job performance:

Again, there is not much regarding crosstabs (yet) on women, working-class voters, union workers, and the like. However, that’s a strong headwind Kamala and the Democrats face if nearly three-fourths of the country thinks the nation is in the toilet. In October, CNN’s Harry Enten warned that no incumbent party has ever kept the White House when the country's direction is that low.

Over at the Associated Press, immigration and the economy reign supreme in voters' minds. 

Voters said the economy and immigration are the top issues facing the country. Still, the future of democracy was also a leading motivator for many Americans casting a ballot in Tuesday’s presidential election. 

AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, found a country mired in negativity and desperate for change as Americans faced a stark choice between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Trump, the Republican, sought to define the election as a referendum on the Biden-Harris administration and blamed it for inflation and illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico. Harris, the Democrat, tried to brand herself as being more focused on the future and described Trump as old, tired and a threat to the Constitution. 

About 4 in 10 voters considered the economy and jobs to be the most important problem facing the country, as frustration with inflation spiking in 2022 lingered in the form of higher grocery, housing and gasoline costs. Roughly 2 in 10 voters said the top issue is immigration, and about 1 in 10 picked abortion.

[…]

What unified the country was a sense that the status quo hasn’t been working. About 8 in 10 voters want at least “substantial change” in how the country is run, including about one-quarter who said they want complete and total upheaval. But what that change would look like is a source of dissent and division 

These aren’t the numbers you want to see as a Democrat right now. Of course, the 'democracy' people are Kamala supporters because they're from Pluto, not planet Earth.

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Some racial breakdowns via Edison Research:

NBC News’ exits had the economy and democracy as the top issues, with the breakdowns being as expected. Kamala supporters think democracy is in danger when it’s not. The direction of the country and voters’ attitudes about it are still not good for Democrats: 

The state of democracy and the economy in the United States were the top issues on the minds of voters as they cast ballots in the 2024 presidential election, according to preliminary results from the NBC News Exit Poll. 

Thirty-five percent of voters said democracy mattered most to their vote, while 31% said the economy. Abortion (14%) and immigration (11%) ranked as the next-most important issues, while just 4% named foreign policy.

Men and women both said the state of democracy was their most important issue, followed by the economy. Two in 10 women said abortion was most important, compared to 8% of men. Immigration was ranked slightly higher among men (12%) than women (10%). Foreign policy lagged behind as a priority for both groups. 

[…] 

All told, the mood of the country is pessimistic: About three-quarters of voters nationwide feel negatively about the way things are going in the country, with 43% saying they're dissatisfied and 29% saying they're angry. 

And nearly half (45%) of voters said they are financially worse off now than they were four years ago. That’s a rate of dissatisfaction higher than in any presidential election going back to 2008, when 42% of voters said they were worse off in the wake of that year’s financial crisis. Just one in four voters say they are better off now than they were four years ago. 

[…]

A majority of Harris voters prioritized the state of democracy. Abortion was the second-most important issue to Harris voters, with 2 in 10 of them saying it mattered most to their vote, followed by economy, foreign policy and immigration. 

Half of Trump voters said the economy was the most important issue to their vote, followed by immigration (20%), democracy (12%), abortion (6%) and foreign policy (4%).