CNN spoke to voters about what issues are top of mind for them, how they feel about the two candidates and how they feel about the economy.
Here are the highlights from the initial results of CNN’s national exit poll of voters.
Top issue: More than a third say democracy is their top issue, and about three in 10 say the economy. Abortion and immigration were followed by foreign policy, with fewer than 5% calling foreign policy their top priority.
A majority of voters who support Vice President Kamala Harris (just under 6 in 10) say democracy is their top issue, and about 20% say abortion is their top issue. About half of those who voted for former President Donald Trump said the economy was their top issue, and about 20% said immigration was their top issue.
Are passionate about their candidate: About three-quarters of voters nationwide, including about eight in 10 Trump supporters and two-thirds of Harris supporters, are not primarily motivated to vote. respondents said they primarily voted to support a candidate. against your opponent.
When asked to choose which of the four qualities are most important to them: ability to lead, consideration for people like them, good judgment, and ability to bring about needed change, Trump supporters overwhelmingly voters said they value leadership ability and the ability to make a difference, Harris said, but voters are more divided on the qualities most important to them.
Views on the economy: Roughly three-quarters of voters have a negative view of the state of the United States today.
Only about a quarter say they are enthusiastic or satisfied with the current state of the country, while more than 4 in 10 say they are dissatisfied and about 3 in 10 are angry.
But voters generally remain optimistic, with more than six in 10 saying America’s best days are in the future, and only about a third saying they are already in the past.
Exit poll details: CNN’s exit poll for the 2024 general election includes interviews with thousands of voters, including both those who voted on Election Day and those who voted early or absentee. I am.
Its scope makes it a powerful tool for understanding voter demographics and political views in this year’s elections. And their findings will ultimately be weighted against the ultimate benchmark: the election results themselves.
Still, exit polls are still opinion polls, and there is a margin of error. In other words, exit polls are most useful when treated as estimates rather than exact measurements. This is especially true for the earliest exit poll numbers, which have not yet been adjusted for final election results.
Methodology: CNN’s exit poll is a combination of in-person interviews with voters on Election Day, as well as in-person interviews, telephone and online polls that measure the opinions of early voters and absentee mail voters.
These were conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. In-person interviews on Election Day were conducted at 279 randomly selected polling stations.
The results also include interviews with early and absentee voters conducted in person, by phone or online at 27 early voting locations from Oct. 24 to Nov. 2. Results for the full sample of 16,604 respondents have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. It is even larger for subgroups.
Headline and post updated with latest exit poll data.
