Wednesday, February 06, 2008
On this day:

Interesting Democratic primary demographics

Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton here in Alabama tonight by a landslide margin of 56%-42%.

Some of the data from the exit polls is pretty interesting. From the AP here:
Across Alabama, about half of the Democratic voters were black, and Obama won 80 percent of their votes. Exit polling also showed he captured 60 percent of the votes from people under 30, who made up more than one in 10 voters.
And here:
About three-fourths of Sen. Barack Obama's votes came from blacks, while about the same share of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's support came from whites. Unlike in neighboring Georgia's primary Tuesday where about 40 percent of white voters supported Obama, Alabama's Democratic primary mirrored more racially divided contests in South Carolina and Florida, where Obama got only about a quarter of the white vote.

There was also an age gap among Democrats: Clinton won some nearly two-thirds of voters 65 and older, while Obama won 60 percent of voters under 30. ...

Although most voters said race and gender did not play a significant role in their decision, more than a quarter of Democratic voters said such factors were important, including almost 10 percent saying race was "the single most important factor" and a similar share saying the same about gender.

Of those who said race was important, six in 10 voted for Obama. Among those who cited gender as important, Obama won almost 55 percent.