Early Wis. Exit Poll Highlights

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 5:30 PM

-- Highlights from preliminary results of exit polling Tuesday in the Wisconsin primaries for The Associated Press and television networks:

THUMBS DOWN ON GLOBALIZATION ...

Wisconsin Democratic primary voters were not big fans of globalization. Seven in 10 said U.S. trade with other countries takes more jobs from Wisconsin and fewer than one in five said it creates more jobs for the state. One in 10 said international trade has no effect on the state either way.

... AND PESSIMISM ABOUT THE ECONOMY

Broader economic concerns were apparent. As in earlier primaries, at least half of Wisconsin Democrats said the nation's economy is not good and nearly all the rest said it is poor.

Wisconsin Republican primary voters felt a bit better about the economy, but still, a majority said it was not good or poor.

OPEN PRIMARY TURNOUT

Wisconsin has truly open primaries _ voters choose in the voting booth which party's primary to vote in. The exit poll indicated that, as in earlier open primaries this season, far more voters were participating in the Democratic than the Republican contest. For about one in seven Democratic voters, Tuesday was the first time they were voting in a primary.

DEMOGRAPHICS:

As usual, men outnumbered women in Republican primaries while the reverse was true on the Democratic side. About nine in 10 voters in both primaries were white. The Republican electorate was a bit older than the Democratic. Roughly four in 10 in each party were college graduates.
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Preliminary results from exit polling by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for The Associated Press and television networks. Partial samples in 35 precincts across Wisconsin.

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