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Democracy and economy are top issues, with big splits between Harris and Trump

The states of democracy and the economy are the two issues at the top of voters’ minds, according to the initial results of CNN’s national exit poll of voters in this year’s presidential election.

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More than one-third call democracy their top issue, with about 3 in 10 saying the economy. That’s followed by abortion and immigration, with fewer than 5% calling foreign policy their top issue.

More context: Thinking an issue is important, of course, doesn’t necessarily imply someone will vote solely on that basis, but polling on the top issues gives a sense of which concerns and campaign themes are resonating most with different parts of the electorate.

The exit poll finds a sharp divide between voters backing Vice President Kamala Harris and those backing former President Donald Trump. A broad majority of Harris voters – slightly under 6 in 10 – call democracy their top issue, with about 20% calling abortion their top issue. About half of Trump voters call the economy their top issue, followed by about 20% calling immigration their biggest issue.

 That scope makes them a powerful tool for understanding the demographic profile and political views of voters in this year’s election. And their findings will eventually be weighted against the ultimate benchmark: the results of the elections themselves. Even so, exit polls are still polls, with margins for error — which means they’re most useful when treated as estimates, rather than precise measurements. That’s particularly true for the earliest exit poll numbers, which haven’t yet been adjusted to match final election results.

They were conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. In-person interviews on Election Day were conducted at a random sample of 279 polling locations. The results also include interviews with early and absentee voters conducted between October 24 and November 2, in person at 27 early voting locations, by phone or online. Results for the full sample of 16,604 respondents have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.