Top five election takeaways

Republicans did far better than expected in Tuesday's election, with Donald Trump becoming the first president since Grover Cleveland elected to two nonconsecutive terms and the GOP taking control of the United States Senate. While control of the House is too close to call and may not be known for several more days, election experts are crunching the numbers to determine insights.

Stephanie Perry is the manager for exit polls at NBC News and the executive director of the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies in the School of Arts & Sciences. She led a team of Penn students working through election night and shares her top five takeaways from that exit polling.

Voters driven by economy, threats to democracy

About a third of voters chose either democracy or the economy as the most important issue behind their vote for president. Two-thirds said democracy in the U.S. today is threatened, and a quarter said it's secure. Among those who cited the state of democracy as the most important issue, 56% voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and 12% voted for Trump.

Among those who said the economy was the most important issue, 51% voted for Trump and 13% voted for Harris.

The economy has ranked as the most important issue on the national exit poll since 2008, and this year voters expressed deep dissatisfaction with the nation's economy. Two-thirds said the condition of the U.S. economy is not so good or poor, and about a third said it's excellent or good.

About half of voters said inflation during the last year has caused them moderate hardship, about 2 in 10 said inflation has caused them severe hardship, and 24% reported that inflation has caused them no hardship. Overall, 51% said they trust Trump over Harris to handle the economy.

Pessimism about the country and personal finances

Voters nationwide had a negative view of the way things are going in the country. Fully two-thirds of voters said they were dissatisfied or angry, including 29% who expressed anger about the direction of the country.

Nearly half (45%) of all voters said they were worse off financially than four years ago. That was a higher level of dissatisfaction than what registered in exit polls going back to 2008, when the election took place amid the financial crisis that propelled Barack Obama to victory.

Three in 10 said they are in the same financial position they were in four years ago, and a quarter said they're better off now.

Gender gap in line with previous years but differ on issues

Harris won women by 10 points, the same margin by which Trump won men. That 20-point gender gap is similar to 2020 and 2016, when it was 23 and 24 points, respectively.

There were differences by gender on the issues, however.

More than a third of men (37%) cited the state of democracy as the most important issue to their vote, followed closely by the economy (34%). Immigration (13%), abortion (8%), and foreign policy (5%) were less important as motivating factors.

Women matched men on the top two issues, with 33% saying the state of democracy was the most important issue and 29% saying the economy. Two in 10 women said abortion was the most important issue to their vote, however, followed by immigration (10%) and foreign policy (3%).

Trump secured his base, made gains in Democratic voting blocs

Trump won some of the key groups generally considered Republican strongholds that he's captured since 2016: most conservative voters (89%), white evangelicals (81%), white men without college degrees (68%) and rural voters (63%).

He also made gains among Latino voters, young voters, and independents relative to his 2020 and 2016 margins. In fact, he won 42% of voters under 30, more than any Republican presidential candidate since 2008.

He also shrunk the gap among Latino voters overall, garnering 45% support, up 13 percentage points from 32% in 2020. And a majority (54%) of Latino men voted for Trump this year. He won that group by 10 points. By comparison, Biden won Latino men by 23 points in 2020.

First-time voters broke for Trump, 54% to 45%. That was a huge reversal from four years ago, when new voters strongly favored Biden, 64% to 32%.

Record low voters identify as Democrats, record high as independents

The share of voters identifying with the Democratic Party hit the lowest mark this century, with 32% of voters nationwide identified as Democrats, down from 37% four years ago. The share of voters identifying as Republicans remained relatively stable.

The number of voters identifying as independent, on the other hand, was the highest it's been this century, up 8 points from 2020. Harris won that group by 5 points, but that's down from the 13-point margin Biden held in 2020.

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