Early exit polls figures are starting to come out. One thing we know so far—and please take it with a big old block of salt, as these figures will be revised as the evening rolls on—is that people really don’t like or trust these candidates! More than half of voters surveyed see both Clinton and Trump unfavorably (54 percent for Clinton; 61 percent for Trump), and more than half see them as untrustworthy and dishonest (59 percent for Clinton; 65 for Trump).
Clinton does better on qualification (53 percent said she is qualified for the presidency and 56 percent said she has the right temperament) while Trump does abysmally (his numbers are 37 percent and 34 percent on those fronts, respectively).
Some figures that are not quite where the Clinton campaign would like them to be at the end of the night—and again, don’t take these early figures as the final word—are these early demographic figures MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki tweeted out.
Of course the Clinton campaign hopes that the final split in Hispanic and black voters’ preferences are at least as good as President Obama’s in 2012, and she’s not there yet in these early exits. (Latino Decisions ran its own exit polling and found Clinton ahead, 79 to 18. That’s more in line with what’s expected, but it also shouldn’t be treated as the honest truth this early on.) She’s always been expected to get swamped among whites without college degrees. But national polls had been showing her maintaining a modest lead over Trump among college-educated whites. Trailing by one point is not ideal. Again: Revisions!
Other preliminary results:
- 17 percent of voters said the prospect of a Clinton presidency excited them, versus 29 percent who said they it scared them. Trump did worse on these, scoring 13 percent and 37 percent respectively.
- Despite Trump’s best efforts, it seems most people are still pretty confident in the vote count: 84 percent said they were either “very” or “somewhat” confident, while just 15 percent said they were either “not very confident” or “not at all confident.” (According to the Associated Press, 7 in 10 Clinton voters had confidence in the accuracy of the vote, versus just 3 in 10 Trump voters.)
- 7 in 10 voters said immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally should be allowed to stay, and about a quarter said they should be deported.
- 25 percent of voters said they made up their minds in October or later.
- 38 percent of voters said the quality they care about the most is a candidate’s ability to bring about change; 22 percent said good judgment, 22 percent said experience; and 15 percent said empathy (“cares about me”).
- 51 percent of voters said they were bothered by Trump’s treatment of women, versus 44 percent who said they were bothered by Clinton’s email troubles. (Some of these people apparently were polled before the FBI announced that their mini-investigation into Anthony Weiner’s computer hadn’t surfaced anything of concern.)
This post will be updated as new figures come in.
