CNN exit polls: Voters’ dissatisfaction with Trump helped fuel Democratic wins in key races
By Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN
(CNN) — Last November, Donald Trump won a return to the White House amid broad national dissatisfaction with the state of the country. A year later CNN exit polling finds voters expressing similar pessimism and anti-incumbent sentiments — this time, helping to fuel a sweep of Democratic victories in some of the first major electoral tests of the second Trump presidency.
Across four closely watched contests — the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, the mayoral race in New York City and the redistricting-related Proposition 50 in California — majorities of voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance. In Virginia, New Jersey and California, more than half of the electorate sees their vote as sending a message to Trump. That message, largely one of opposition, helped to propel Democratic gubernatorial wins by Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. In California, it helped seal support for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City’s mayoral race, meanwhile, may owe more to local concerns about issues like cost of living. But it also reflects a loss for former governor Andrew Cuomo, whom Trump endorsed at the last minute.
Tuesday’s Democratic victories come despite middling ratings for the Democratic Party, with Spanberger, Sherrill and Mamdani winning 16% to 33% of the vote among voters who dislike their party.
In New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City, voters call economic issues – taxes, cost of living or the economy as a whole – their top concern. Only voters in Virginia see their state’s economy as excellent or good, while those in California, New York City and New Jersey take a more pessimistic view of their state or city’s economy.
CNN Exit Polls are from the Voter Poll conducted by SSRS, which combines thousands of pre-election interviews with those conducted at polling places to reflect the opinions of the full electorate. That scope makes them a powerful tool for understanding the demographic profile and political views of voters in this year’s election. And their findings will eventually be weighted against the ultimate benchmark: the results of the elections themselves. Even so, exit polls are still polls, with margins for error — which means they’re most useful when treated as estimates, rather than precise measurements. That’s particularly true for the earliest numbers, which haven’t yet been adjusted to match final election results. Learn more about how this year’s surveys were conducted here.
Even in a political environment with sharply national overtones, tonight’s results also reflect factors deeply specific to each election. Here’s a closer look at each of these key races:
Virginia
In Virginia, Spanberger’s victory in the governor’s race was powered in significant part by unhappiness with the state of the nation. A majority of voters said they disapproved of Trump — and roughly 9 in 10 of those voters supported Spanberger over her rival, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears.
Closer to home, voters give Glenn Youngkin, the state’s outgoing Republican governor, majority approval. But Earle-Sears wasn’t able to hold onto enough of his supporters: Roughly one-quarter of voters who think he did a good job as governor still backed Spanberger to succeed him.
There’s a similar pattern when it comes to key issues in the state. While about half of voters said that societal support for transgender rights has gone too far, more than one-fifth in that group still support Spanberger over Earle-Sears, who made attacks on transgender rights a cornerstone of her campaign. By contrast, just over half of voters also say that the Trump administration’s actions on immigration enforcement have gone too far — and Spanberger won more than 9 in 10 of them.
Spanberger won among voters who identify as political independents — a group that makes up roughly a third of this year’s electorate — and among female voters, voters with college degrees and the majority of voters in the state who say abortion should be legal in most or all cases. She also notched a significant advantage among voters from households where someone worked this year as a federal employee or was employed as a federal contractor.
Earle-Sears did win among the roughly 45% of voters who say that texts sent by Democratic state attorney general nominee Jay Jones are disqualifying — although Spanberger did get the votes of about 20% in that group. Spanberger denounced the texts but did not call for Jones to drop out.
Downballot, about 41% of voters said that texts sent by Jones were disqualifying, with 37% calling them concerning but not disqualifying or describing them as not a concern, and 18% saying they hadn’t heard enough to say. Jones also won his race, as did the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, Ghazala Hashmi.
New Jersey
Sherrill’s victory over Republican Jack Ciattarelli took place in the shadow of two unpopular incumbents: Trump’s approval rating stands at about 42% among voters in this year’s election, with the state’s outgoing Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, also seeing an approval rating that’s slightly underwater.
Those factors map closely onto Tuesday’s race: Roughly 9 in 10 voters who disapprove of Trump cast their vote for Sherrill, while roughly 8 in 10 who disapprove of Murphy backing the Republican to replace him.
Sherrill’s favorability rating is about 10 points higher than Ciattarelli’s, and about half say her campaign against him was mostly fair, while voters are split on the fairness of Ciattarelli’s campaign.
Roughly 7 in 10 voters say that property tax rates are a major problem where they live, and about 6 in 10 say the same of electricity costs. More than half also call political corruption in the state a major problem.
Most voters who call the economy or health care the top issue in the state backed Sherrill, while voters who are more focused on taxes or immigration largely supported Ciattarelli.
New York City
New York City’s multi-candidate mayoral race was marked by sharp demographic divides.
Mamdani won with a coalition that included majority support among voters younger than 45, college graduates, first-time voters and renters. He also won most of the city’s Democratic voters.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo won a majority of Jewish voters. He also outpaced Mamdani among older voters, those without a college degree and those born in the city. Independents in the city, meanwhile, were closely split between Mamdani and Cuomo.
There were also big differences between the bases of support for Mamdani and Cuomo. Nearly 90% of Mamdani’s supporters say their vote is to support him, rather than to oppose his rivals. (Republican Curtis Sliwa’s voters also saw their ballot as a statement of support.) By contrast, Cuomo’s voters are closely split between voting to support him and voting to oppose the other candidates.
Mamdani voters overwhelmingly called cost of living the top issue facing the city, while Cuomo voters were divided between cost of living and crime. And a plurality of Mamdani’s supporters say it was most important either that their candidate would bring needed change, while Cuomo’s supporters broadly say they were looking for the candidate with the right experience.
Although most voters say they’re holding steady or getting ahead financially, nearly 60% call cost of living the city’s most important issue. And more than 7 in 10 say the cost of housing where they live is a major problem, compared to just about one-third who say crime is a major problem. About 4 in 10 call the candidates’ positions on Israel a major factor in their vote.
Mamdani won a majority of that big swath of voters who said they were highly concerned with housing costs, while those highly concerned about the candidates’ positions on Israel split about evenly between him and Cuomo.
California
California voters were keenly aware of the stakes of Proposition 50, the ballot measure to temporarily enact a new congressional map drawn by Democrats in response to Republican-driven redistricting in other states. Roughly two-thirds who voted said that it’s very important to them which party controls Congress, rising to about 76% among “yes” voters.
More than 90% of California voters — including those who backed Proposition 50 — say they’d generally prefer state congressional district lines to be drawn by a non-partisan commission than the party in power. But the majority who voted “yes” on the measure also see it as a response to GOP-led redistricting elsewhere: around 82% say they see it as a way to counter the changes made by Republicans in other states, rather than the best way of drawing congressional districts.
Overall, about half of California voters say that neither party is handling the redrawing of congressional district lines fairly, with the rest more likely to say that only the Democrats are taking a fair approach than that only the Republicans are.
Around three-quarters of California voters say they’re dissatisfied with or angry about the way things are going in the U.S., and about half say they view their vote as a way to oppose Trump. More than 6 in 10 say that the Trump administration’s actions on immigration enforcement have gone too far, and most say the governor should not cooperate with the Trump administration on its enforcement efforts. A majority also oppose the idea of the federal government sending the National Guard into major cities in California.
More than 80% say that the cost of living in their area is unaffordable, and the economy far outpaces immigration, health care, crime or climate change as the top issue facing the state.
The CNN Voter Poll conducted by SSRS was conducted from October 22nd -November 4th, and includes representative samples of 4,490 voters in California, 4,336 voters in New Jersey, 4,522 voters in Virginia and 4,447 voters in New York City. The Voter Poll combines data collected from verified registered voters online and by telephone, with data collected in-person from Election Day voters at 30 precincts each in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City. Respondents could complete the poll in English or Spanish. The overall margin of sampling error for voters, accounting for design effects, is approximately plus or minus 2.1 percentage points in California, 2.0 percentage points in New Jersey, 2.2 percentage points in New York City, and 2.0 percentage points in Virginia.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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