PRESS RELEASE – Harwich High School – November 7, 2006 6:35 PM

Harwich High School Government Students An= nounce Results of Their Exit Poll

The Harwich= High School government classes conducted an exi= t poll at the Harwich Community Center between 7:30 am a= nd 12:00 am. The students interv= iewed 370 voters. The overall resul= ts are interesting but limited since the poll was only conducted in Harwich. More pertinent is the analysis off= ered below based on gender, age and party. We also found interesting trends in the support for the Romney and B= ush administrations and for the gay marriage amendment. Lastly, we looked at the impact of= TV ads and debates on voter preferences in the gubernatorial race.

Our overall results indicate the following: For governor, Patrick received 56.= 5%, Healey 34.1%, Mihos 5.1% and Ross 2.4%. For Senate, Kennedy received 70.8%= to 27.0% for Chase. For US Representative, Delahunt received 70.3%, Beatty 24.3% and White 2.7%. For State Senate, O’Leary re= ceived 63.0% to 33.5% for Barros. In the State Representative race, = Peake received 55.4% and Malloy 41.9%. For Attorney General, Coakley received 60.8% and Friso= li 28.1%. And for County Commissioner= , Doherty received 65.7% and Bernardo 25.4%.= Question 1 was losing 60.3% to 37.0%. Question 2 was losing 54.3% to 37.8%. And Question 3 was win= ning 48.1% to 44.6%. These numbers= do not add to 100% because of the number of respondents who did not vote for t= hat office or question, or who did not report their votes. These results cannot predict the f= inal results in any race since the poll was only conducted in Harwich.

More interestingly, we can analyze some of the reasons= why people voted as they did. Respondents were asked to identify 1-3 issues most important in the state campaigns for them. Of = the issues we suggested on the poll form, education was mentioned as a critical issues by 43.0%, the economy/jobs by 41.6% = and health care by 36.5%. Less important were taxes – 28.6%, personal qualities of the candidates – 23.0%, and immigration policy – 20.0%. Least important were gay marriage – 19.7%, abortion/stem-cell research – 18.1% and crime/security – 16.2%. In the governo= r’s race, the three issues that helped Patrick the most (people who cited them voted most strongly for him), were health care, education, and abortion/stem-cell research. = For Healey, the three strongest issues were immigration, tax policy, and crime/security. In the State = Representative race, Maloy’s three strongest issues were= the same as Healey, while Peake’s were abortion/stem-cell research, health care, and the candidates’ personal qualities. For the other race= s, all issues appeared to break in favor of the front-runner.

We broke down our results by several demographics. By gender, we saw the same “= gender gap” as has been apparent in recent elections. Among men, Patrick won narrowly &#= 8211; 47.0% to 41.6% over Healey, but women voted overwhelmingly for Patrick 62.0= % to 29.6%. In all races, women we= re more supportive of Democratic candidates than men, though the gap varied. In the State Senate Race, women we= re only 3.3% more likely to support O’Leary and in the County Commissioner= ’s race, Doherty received only 2.3% greater support from men. The largest gaps wee in the Attorn= ey General Race where Coakley received 15.1% great= er support from women, and in the State Representat= ive race where Peake received 21.5% greater support= from women. In the ballot question= s men were 14.6% more likely to support Question 1, women were 10.7% more likely = to support Question 3, and Question 2 only had a 3.5% gap. The gender gap continues to be a critical factor in elections.

We also analyzed our survey by age broken down into yo= ung voters (18-39), middle-aged voters (40-59), and older voters (60 and older). For the most part, yo= unger voters were more likely to support Democratic candidates, especially Patrick (66.7%, compared to 51.9% for middle aged and 55.0% for older voters) as we= ll as Kennedy and Delahunt, both of whose support among young voters was great= er than 80%, while their support among the other age groups were in the 60’s. However, for coun= ty commissioner and attorney general, there was little difference, and for the State Senate, O’Leary had the most support among older voters (66.3%) middle-aged voters (64.1%), while younger voters supported him at 53.0%. On the ballot questions, a majorit= y of young voters voted for all three questions, while both middle aged and older voters voted against all three questions.&= nbsp; For Question 1, the support was 57.6% - 33.6% - 32.0 % (youngest to oldest), Question 2: 51.5% - 34.4% - 34.3%, and Question 3 – 69.7% - 45.0% - 41.4%. Clearly, age h= ad a strong impact on our survey.

When we broke down our results by party, the results f= or Democrats and Republicans were predictable with the exception of Doherty’s receipt of 64.4% of Democratic support. Most interestingly were the voting trends among unenrolled or “independent&#= 8221; voters. They voted for Patric= k over Healey 55.4% to 31.9%, and over 70% for Kennedy, Delahunt and Doherty. In the = State Senate Race they favored O’Leary 57.8% to 38.7%, and in the State Representative race, they favored Peake 51.5% to 45.8%. In the ballot question= s, little difference existed on questions 1 and two, but on Question 3, Democr= ats favored it by 56.9% while Republicans were at 32.4%, and independents narro= wly supported the measure.

We also asked our respondents whether they approved of= the jobs that Romney and Bush were doing in their offices. Voters disapproved of Romney’= ;s performance – 43.5% to 33.5%, with 21.6% responding “don’t know/no opinion.” Bush fared considerably worse, vot= ers disapproving of his administration 62.4% to 25.9%, with only 10.3% unsure. =

Perhaps surprisingly, an overwhelming percentage of respondents disapprove of the constitutional amendment to restrict gay marriage. Only 28.4% supporte= d it while 65.7% did not (5.9% did not respond). Also, gay marriage was one of the = issues least often cited as important in deciding people’s votes. So this would seem to indicated that voters in Harwich have largely accepted gay marriage, and moved on fro= m it as in important issue. While supporters of the amendment tended to vote more for Republican candidates, = this gap was perhaps smaller than expected – mostly around a 10% gap. Though in the governor’s race the gap was about 21% - supporters of the amendment actually favoring Healey 48.1% to 42.3%.= The most dramatic gap was in the S= tate Representative race, where those who favor the amendment supported Maloy (67.3% to 30.0%) while opponents supported Peake (68.0% to 29.3%) – suggesting that this w= as perhaps a more critical issue in this race.

We also asked whether candidates were influenced in the governor’s race by the debates or TV ads. Those who reported being influence= d by ads supported Patrick more (64.5% to 26.4% for Healey) than those who were = not influenced (53.0% to 38.1%), suggesting that the ads – most prominent= of which were attack ads by Healey – hurt the Republican candidate. Those voters who watched at least = some of the gubernatorial debates were 9% more likely to support Patrick than th= ose who did not.

Overall, the results give us some interesting insights= into the campaigns and are a credit to the hard work of the government students = at Harwich High School who conducted the surv= ey, entered the data, and helped analyze the results.