Voters sharply divided along gender, race lines
Although NBC News has projected that President Barack Obama will defeat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, voters were sharply divided along lines of sex, ethnicity, age, income and religion, exit polls showed.
Exit poll data showed a distinct gender gap: Among male voters, 52 percent favored Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, while 45 percent backed President Barack Obama. The data reflected slipping support for Obama, who won 49 percent of male voters four years ago.
Among white male voters the disparity was even sharper: Obama was winning just 36 percent of the white male vote Tuesday, compared with the 41 percent he won in 2008, the exit polls showed.
Women voters favored Obama 55 percent to 43 percent – about the same split as four years ago when 56 percent of women voters preferred Obama and 43 percent supported Republican candidate Sen. John McCain.
Within the female vote there was a sharp divide between married and unmarried women: the married backed Romney, 54 percent to 45 percent, while unmarried women preferred Obama by a better than 2-to-1 ratio, 67 percent to 31 percent.
Among white voters -– who accounted for nearly three quarters of the electorate — Romney was leading Obama by 59 to 39 percent, making Romney’s performance among white voters four points better than McCain’s in 2008.
Younger voters preferred Obama, but not by as lopsided a margin as in 2008: Among voters age 18 to 29 Tuesday, nearly three out of five said they voted for Obama, compared with about two of three in 2008.
On the other hand, Romney had a substantial advantage among voters 65 and older, who favored the Republican by a margin of at least 11 points.
Latinos and blacks overwhelmingly voted for Obama, according to the exit polls. Latinos, an important part of Obama’s winning coalition in 2008, were even stronger in their support of Obama than they were four years ago, as were African-American voters. Latinos, who accounted for about a tenth of the national electorate, favored Obama by about 70-30. Black voters continued to be exceptionally loyal to Obama – he was getting more than 9 in 10 of their votes Tuesday night, just as he did four years ago.
