Nearly two-thirds of primary voters describe themselves as conservative, according to the initial results of CNN’s exit poll for New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary, with about one-quarter calling themselves very conservative, while about one-third describe themselves as moderates.
The electorate was relatively closely divided between voters registered as Republicans and those registered as undeclared, New Hampshire’s term for independent voters.
Exit polls are a valuable tool to help understand primary voters’ demographic profile and political views. Like all surveys, however, exit polls are estimates, not precise measurements of the electorate. That’s particularly true for the preliminary set of exit poll numbers, which haven’t yet been weighted to match the final results of the primary. But the results provide a glimpse of the type of voters turning out to participate.
Most said they did not consider themselves a part of the MAGA movement, referring to the “Make America Great Again” slogan popularized by former President Donald Trump in 2016. And roughly half said they believed that President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump four years ago was legitimate. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Those numbers form a substantially different backdrop than in Iowa’s caucuses, where nearly 9 in 10 described themselves as conservative – a designation that, in this election cycle, has largely correlated with support for the former president. Nearly half of Iowa caucus participants identified themselves as MAGA, and roughly two-thirds denied the legitimacy of Biden’s 2020 victory.
The exit poll for New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary was conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. It includes 1,565 interviews with Republican primary voters across 40 different…
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