Former president Donald Trump appears to be winning over union households in Ohio, according to early data from CNN‘s exit polls.
Ohio, once a premier battleground state, has shifted toward Republicans in recent election cycles. But Democrats were hoping that incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown could fend off a challenge from Republican Bernie Moreno in the Buckeye state. CNN had called the presidential race for Trump in Ohio, but the Senate race remained uncalled as of 10:30 p.m. ET.
CNN’s exit poll shows Trump performing well among households with a union member. Organized labor has long been a key component of the Democratic coalition, but Republicans have made inroads with union members in recent years.
Trump won 54 percent of voters who live in a union household, compared to 44 percent who backed Harris, according to the exit poll. This accounted for about 17 percent of total voters.
Four years earlier, Biden won union households by about 16 points (56 percent to 40 percent), according to CNN’s 2020 exit polls.
Exit polls measure voter attitudes about a range of topics but are subject to change as more surveys are released to news outlets as election night goes on. Data that could indicate the direction of the election is also withheld until polls close.
Early exit poll results have yielded some positive signs for Trump; nationally, 72 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction in which the country is going, according to the exit poll. In Georgia, another battleground, exit polls showed Trump doing better with independents than he did four years earlier.
Ohio backed Trump by 8.1 points in 2020, the same margin he carried it by in 2016. FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregate showed Trump up 8.3 points in Ohio, while Moreno led by 0.8 points.
Harris won a slim majority of independent voters in Ohio—50 percent to 47 percent, according to the exit poll. She also won 56 percent of voters who identified as moderate, compared to 42 percent who voted for Trump.
The battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had still not yet been called by 10:30 p.m. ET. Polls had pointed to tight races in each of those states.
In Michigan, another state where Democrats have previously relied on union support, Harris performed better among union households, winning them by a 19-poitn margin (58 percent to 39 percent), according to CNN’s exit poll. Some labor unions that previously backed Biden, such as the International Association of Fire Fighters, declined to endorse Harris this year.
While Ohio was not heavily contested on the presidential level, the Senate race could determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the chamber next year. Democrats invested heavily to help Brown, who has previously overperformed other Democrats in the state, win reelection.
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