Jan 26, 2008 7:30 pm US/Eastern
South Carolina Voters Looked At Race, Gender
Here is a look at issues that mattered to South Carolina voters in today's democratic primary, based on exit poll interviews.
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DIVIDED BY RACE Black voters in South Carolina voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, with eight in 10 supporting him. Nearly all the rest voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton. While a quarter of whites also voted for Obama, three-quarters of whites split their votes between the two white candidates, Clinton and John Edwards, about evenly. Edwards' support came almost exclusively from white voters.
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WOMEN: RACE OVER GENDER In the historic battle that pitted a black man against a white woman, the question on many minds was how black women would vote. They went overwhelmingly for the black man, in the same eight in 10 proportions as black men. Nearly all the rest voted for Clinton.
Clinton wasn't even able to win a majority of white women, a group she won with just over 40 percent of the vote. Edwards was not far behind Clinton among white women, and Obama won about 20 percent of them.
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READY FOR A FIRST Three in four voters said the country is ready to elect a black president, and about the same said the country is ready to elect a woman. Nine in 10 Obama voters said the country is ready for a black president, but fewer Clinton voters said the country is ready. Nearly all Clinton voters and two-thirds of Obama voters said the country is ready to elect a woman president.
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LOOKING FOR A CHANGE Just over half the voters said they were looking for candidate who could bring about needed change, a group Obama won handily. Fewer than 15 percent of voters said they were mostly looking for a candidate with experience, the only candidate quality that Clinton dominated. Edwards and Obama split the votes of those who want a candidate who cares about people like them, and Clinton and Obama split the votes of those few voters who were looking for a candidate who can win in November.
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IT'S THE ECONOMY, AGAIN Given three choices, half the voters said the economy was the most important issue facing the country, up from 38 percent in the New Hampshire primary in early January. Economy voters lined up behind the candidates in a similar fashion to the overall result, with Obama winning about half, Clinton coming in well behind and Edwards in third.
About a quarter of voters said health care was the most important problem facing the country. Obama won their support by an even greater margin than he won economy voters, with Clinton getting just a quarter of their support. The war in Iraq was judged most important by only one in five voters, and they also voted mostly for Obama.
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POLICY OR PERSONALITY? Given the choice, 6 in 10 voters said the issues were most important to their vote, and they voted for Obama. Clinton did a little better among those who said leadership and personal qualities were most important, but Obama still won that group as well.
From a partial sample of 1,269 voters conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International in 35 precincts in South Carolina's Democratic primary. Margin of sampling error plus or minus 4 percentage points.
