BREAKING: First Exit Polls Released! And Voters Are NOT HAPPY

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Exit polls were invented and implemented by Dutch sociologist Marcel van Dam (no relation to Jean-Claude) for the 1967 legislative elections in the Netherlands. Later that year, CBS News used exit polling in Kentucky’s gubernatorial contest. The concept caught on and became the go-to methodology for national news organizations. At least for a little while.

Unfortunately, it was always rife with controversy and false conclusions.

In 1989, Democrat Doug Wilder was elected governor of Virginia, becoming the country’s first black governor since the Reconstruction era. Exit polling showed him comfortably ahead of his Republican opponent, Marshall Coleman, cruising to an easy 10-point victory.

But the exit polling wasn’t accurate. Not even close!

When all the votes were actually counted, Wilder had 50.1% and Coleman 49.8%. The exit poll was off by 10 points!

Exit polling began to fall out of favor in the 2000 presidential election, when major media outlets called Florida for Democrat Al Gore — even though there were still plenty of people voting in the GOP-friendly Florida panhandle. Famed economist John Lott has published statistical breakdowns, demonstrating how calling Florida for Gore depressed panhandle voting, nearly costing Bush the state — as well as the presidency.

Other countries, including France, Germany, Italy, India, and the United Kingdom have criminalized exit polling, fearing it might unduly influence the electoral outcome. But in America, of course, the First Amendment gives our media carte blanch to do all the exit polling its heart desires. (But they pinky-swear they’ll be careful and not put their fingers on the scale.)

At 5 p.m. today, the very first exit polling for the 2024 presidential election came in. Here are the early results:

• A larger percentage of Trump voters in 2024 believe abortion should be legal than in 2020.
• 35% said “democracy” was their most important issue, which likely bodes well for Harris. 
• 31% cited the economy, which likely helps Trump.
• Abortion came in at 14%, followed by immigration (11%).

Overall, the biggest issues for Harris supporters were, in order: democracy, abortion, the economy, foreign policy, and immigration. For Trump voters, a whopping 50% named the economy as the most important issue, followed by immigration, democracy, abortion, and foreign policy.

If the economy ends up being the biggest issue for independents and undecideds as well, it should be enough for a MAGA victory.

Roughly 20% of female voters ranked abortion as their top issue; just 8% of men agreed. This is yet another indicator of the gender divide between the candidates.

The economy seems to be the Achilles’ heel for Democrats: About 66% of voters said the economy is bad; just a third claimed the economy was good or excellent.

And if the economy isn’t their Achilles’ heel, it’s likely to be the right-track, wrong-track issue: About 75% of voters are unhappy with the direction of our country (29% described themselves as outright angry). Although Harris used language like “turn the page” and “new generation of leadership” to differentiate herself from Biden, when voters don’t like our nation’s direction, it almost always hurts the incumbent party.

Interestingly, a candidate’s personal qualities seem to have dropped in importance: Just 30% said the candidate’s capacity to be a leader was most important. Twenty-five percent said it was his/her ability to be an agent of change. Good judgment came in at just 21%; empathy towards people like us was 19%.

I’m somewhat surprised the issue of democracy mattered more to Harris voters than abortion. If (when?) Harris loses, the decision to accentuate democracy and emphasize the “Trump is Hitler” card could come back to haunt them, especially if the issue failed to motivate enough liberals to actually vote. 

Of course, the mainstream media is still the mainstream media, and propagandists and gonna propagandize. NBC News left the most important finding of their exit polling in their last paragraph. Naturally, it’s an extraordinarily positive omen for Trump: 

The preliminary exit polls also found that just 41% of voters approved of President Joe Biden’s job performance, while 59% disapproved. That’s markedly lower than Trump’s job rating (50%) when he lost his re-election bid in 2020, which underscores that Harris needs voters to view her differently from Biden. [emphasis added]

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