Sen. Barack Obama capitalized today on a tidal wave of disenchantmentwith President Bush, deep worry about the teetering economy, andnotable demographic shifts away from the Republican Party among youngpeople, Hispanics and college-educated voters.
As expected, the election appeared to produce record turnout, withlong lines outside polling stations in many states, on top ofrecord-breaking early voting, in which roughly a third of eligiblevoters cast their ballots before Election Day. But the first rounds ofexit polls suggested that Obama was building a majority with a lessdramatic surge in young voters and African Americans than many hadexpected.
Instead, he appeared to have benefited from deep dissatisfactionwith the Republican brand, with 31 percent of voters in tonight'spreliminary exit poll results describing themselves as Republicans,compared with 40 percent who identified themselves as Democrats. Fouryears ago, the numbers were equal.
The partisan shift away from the Republicans did not appear tosignify an ideological shift toward the left. The proportion of votersdescribing themselves as liberal, moderate and conservative stayedroughly the same compared with four years ago. The proportion of voterswho said they thought the government should do more was higher than in2004; nonetheless, more than 40 percent thought government should notbe more active.
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But, in what appeared to be a crucial loss for Sen.John McCain (R-Ariz.), voters almost across the board fled from Bush'swinning coalition in 2004. Two in 10 conservatives nationally backedObama, according to the exit polls, putting him on course to match BillClinton's 1996 performance among those voters. Obama also appeared tobe picking up more Republicans than either John Kerry in 2004 or AlGore in 2000. Among independents, he had an early eight-pointadvantage. And nearly one in five voters who went for Bush in 2004 saidthey went for Obama this time, double the rate of Kerry voters who wentfor McCain.
Although ideological identification appeared stable, there seemed tobe deep demographic undercurrents, with 44 percent of the Hispanic vote-- the same percentage that voted for Bush in 2004 -- going to Obama.Although Hispanic voters have been moving away from the Republicans forthe past several years amid the often-harsh debate over immigrationreform, some Democrats had worried that Obama would not be able to winover Hispanic voters who had favored Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton(D-N.Y.) during the primary season.
There was also a clear shift among white voters, most noticeableamong those with some college education. Of the three-quarters of theelectorate who were white, Obama was winning about 45 percent, which,if it held in the final results, would represent a four-pointimprovement over Kerry's performance and a larger share of the whitevote than has been won by any Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter.Exit polls suggested that Obama tied McCain among white voters withsome college education, a group Bush won by 11 points.
Obama was losing white voters without college education by about 16points, an improvement over Kerry's performance, but a smaller increasethan his surge among college-educated whites.
As expected, Obama won nearly the entire African-American vote,about 96 percent, compared with the 88 percent share that Kerry won.But overall, only about one in 10 voters said race was an importantfactor in deciding whom to pick -- and a majority of them voted forObama.
Some credit may end up going to the unions backing Obama. Unionleaders reported in recent months that they were finding widespreaduncertainty about Obama among their members. Yet exit polls suggestedthat rank-and-file union members voted for Obama at the same rate asthey had for Kerry, about 60 percent.
The Republican coalition is also imperiled among younger voters, asexit polls showed a greatly widened generation gap. Although the shareof younger voters did not surge over 2004's figure, the rate of votersyounger than 30 who voted for the Democrats increased to nearly 70points, a 17 point increase. Obama also won voters ages 30 to 47, bysmaller margins. But among voters older than 65, McCain maintained thesame level of support as Bush had, even as he collected far lesssupport overall.
As a debate was breaking out today among McCain advisers about Gov.Sarah Palin's role in the campaign's struggles, exit polls suggestedthat she had not been a help with a broad swath of the electorate.About 60 percent of voters told exit pollsters that they thought Palinwas not qualified to be vice president.
The discontent in the electorate was palpable. Although results inthe first round of exit polls were likely to shift at the margins bythe end of the night, about a quarter of voters said they approved ofBush's performance, half as many as did when he ran for reelection fouryears ago. Of the 70 percent who did not approve of his performance, 70percent voted for Obama. Only a fifth of voters thought the country wason the right track, compared with roughly half of all voters in 2004.
McCain spent much of the campaign trying to disassociate himselffrom Bush, proclaiming in his final debate with Obama: "I am notPresident Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you shouldhave run four years ago." But when exit pollsters asked voters whetherthey thought McCain would continue Bush's policies or take the countryin a new direction, half of them said McCain would continue on Bush'spath. And of those voters, nine in 10 voted for Obama.
Driving the dissatisfaction with Bush was profound concern about theeconomy. More than 60 percent of voters described it as the mostimportant issue, and Obama was leading among them by about 14 points.Half of voters said the economy was in "poor" shape, the worst of fouroptions they were given, which was triple the rate four years ago, andObama was winning more than two-thirds of them. More than 40 percent ofvoters said their finances were worse off than four years ago, comparedwith a quarter who said that in 2004, and Obama was winning nearlythree in four of them.
