National Exit Polls

According to exit polls, President-elect Obama formed a new coalition among gender, ethnicity and age groups that shows not only young voters paved his way to the White House:

Women (53% of electorate) voted for Obama 56% to 43%, which is the second largest gender gap since 1980. The 13% margin compares to Kerry's 3% advantage in '04.

Voters under 30 (18% of electorate) voted for Obama 66% to 32%. While the young voters' share of the electorate stayed roughly the same as 2004, the margin of 34% was significantly bigger than Kerry's 9% margin in '04.

Hispanic voters (8% of the electorate) voted for Obama 66% to 32%. The margin of 34% is significantly higher than Kerry's margin of 13% in '04.

African-American voters overwhelmingly voted for Obama 96% to 4% and also made up a larger share (13%) of the electorate than they had in any of the past eight presidential elections. However, in comparison, the support for Obama was only 8 percentage points higher than that for Kerry in '04 (11% of the electorate) although Obama's margin was 15 percentage points larger than in '04.

Despite the increase in margins amongst Hispanics and African-Americans, there was movement amongst white voters as well. McCain won white voters by a margin of 12 percentage points compared to Bush's 17 point margin in '04, which is a net gain of 5% for Democrats. In addition, white voters' share of the electorate decreased by 3 percentage points in '08.

Interestingly, men (47% of electorate) voted for Obama 49% to 48%. The margin of 1% is in contrast to President Bush's 11% advantage in '04.

Voters between the ages of 30 and 44 (29% of electorate) voted for Obama 52% to 46% compared to Bush's advantage of 7% in '04. That is a 13% swing.

Voters 60 and older (23% of electorate) favored McCain 51% to 47% compared to an 8% margin for Bush in '04.