Tuesday and What It Tells Us About 2016

The main message of the election and take-away from this election-night poll^[1] is surely a call to the Democrats’ national leaders to address this new economy where jobs do not pay enough to live on, working women and men are struggling without help, and good American jobs are not being created while the government is beholden to those with the most money. 

The voters want to vote for change, and this poll shows that the Democrats and their supportive coalition would rally to a message that understands people are struggling with the new economy; but that was not President’s economic narrative for this election and it showed. Tackling the new economy is a tremendous undertaking, but also one that will be received by a large audience of voters and that is the best path forward for Democrats.

But for all that and two consecutive off-year wave elections, there is no reason to think Republicans have raised their odds of electing a president in 2016.  Looking at this poll, one would rather be in the position of the Democrats than of the Republicans. 

In the presidential electorate that we surveyed, some of whom voted on Tuesday, Democrats have a 6-point advantage in party identification; the congressional vote is even; and Hillary Clinton defeats Mitt Romney by 6 points – well ahead of Obama’s margin in 2012.  Moreover, this does not reflect the projected growth in Millennials and Hispanics in the 2016 electorate.

The election was fundamentally important, but has not disrupted the national trends and coalitions – even on the day of electoral triumph for the Republicans.  

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[1] Based on a unique survey of 1,429 likely 2016 voters across the country, including 1,030 2014 voters, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Democracy Corps and Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund. This survey was conducted from November 3-5, 2014 using a list of 2010 voters, 2012 voters, and new registrants. Unless otherwise noted, the margin of error for the full sample is = +/- 2.59% at 95% confidence. Results among 2014 voters are weighted to reflect election results and Exit Poll demographic results publicly posted by Edison Research. This also includes oversamples conducted for WVWVAF in Senate Battleground seats to allow more in-depth message testing in these states as well as an oversample of unmarried women that voted in 2014. Half of respondents were reached by cell phone, in order to account for ever-changing demographics and trying to accurately sample the full American electorate.