Wisconsin Exit Polls Show Barack Obama Has Made Gains to Attract Hillary Clinton's Base

The exit polls in Wisconsin showed that Barrack Obama continues to make strides in creating a larger coalition. He continues to chip away at voters from Clinton's base. Tonight's primary in Wisconsin was another victory in a hot streak for Obama. He won voters in the age groups 18-29, 30-44, and 45-59 according to an exit poll from CNN. The good news for Hillary Clinton is she still had a double digit lead in the exit polls among voters over the age of 60. Even among women Obama only lost to Clinton 51% to 49%.

Important Issues

The most important issue for the voters of Wisconsin was the economy. 44% of the voters from the exit poll said the economy was the most important issue. Of those voters, 55% said they were voting for Obama. So the sign is that people believe he is the best candidate for fixing the economy. The other two important issues were the Iraq War and Health Care. In all three groups, voters felt Obama was the best candidate . This demonstrates that his message of change seems to be winning against Clinton's message of experience.

Top Candidate Quality

Obama showed his message of change is working as 54% of voters said that was their top quality they were looking for in a candidate. Only 22% of voters said experience is the quality they find most important. That is a bad sign for things to come for Clinton whose main advantage over Obama is experience. Another blow to Clinton is that among voters who said that the top quality for them was that the candidate care about people, 54% voted for Obama. This shows that more people believe that Obama cares than Clinton. Again this shows momentum shifting to Obama, as until now, each candidate was credited with one top quality, but now Obama appears to have two.

People supporting the nominee

Another question voters were asked in the exit polls was if each candidate won the nomination would they be satisfied. If Clinton was nominated 68% said they would be satisfied compared to the 82% who said they would be satisfied if Obama was the candidate. This will help in Obama's fight to get super delegates because many have said that they don't want to split the party. If Clinton is elected, the polls show there may be a possibility of the Democratic Party not completely uniting behind her.

Gender

Among white voters women again aligned themselves behind Clinton, but Obama won in a landslide among white male voters. For White women 53% voted for Clinton, while 62% white males voted for Obama. This shows that Obama continues to gain more White males and females from Clinton.

Bad Feelings

People showed that they have negative feelings about Clinton. Voters were asked if each candidate made unfair attacks. Of the voters, 53% said Clinton attacked unfairly compared to only 43% that thought her attacks were fair. Only 33% of the voters thought Obama attacked unfairly. That's a 20% difference or one out of five people. People continue to think of Clinton's campaign as a negative one. This will hurt her as the primaries continue as the view will alienate her supporters.

The next State Primaries for the Democrats are on March 4^th and include Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island.