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Exit polling out of Pennsylvania Tuesday showed Hillary Clinton kept hold of her core voters — whites, union members and lower-income households –while Obama held down some of his key constituencies.

Of those who live in union households, 59 percent went for Clinton while 41 percent voted for Obama.

Lower income voters — those making under $50,000 a year — also went for Clinton, 54 percent to 46 percent for Obama.

College graduates usually go for Obama, and Pennsylvania was no exception, though the margin was small — 51 percent went to Obama compared to 49 percent for Clinton.

Obama needed urban voters to stay competitive, and got 57 percent of them, compared to 43 percent for Clinton.

FOX News exit polling asked which candidate is “in touch” with voters. Since voters were given the choice of choosing both candidates, 67 percent said Clinton is “in touch” while 65 percent said Obama.

Obama’s comments about “bitter” blue-collar workers clinging to guns and religion when the economy turns sour may have affected some voters.

Sixty percent of Democratic gun-owners in Pennsylvania voted for Clinton, and 40 percent for Obama. Voters who said they attend religious services weekly picked Clinton by 58 percent, compared to 42 percent for Obama.

Asked if one side fought unfairly, 68 percent said Clinton is guilty of such tactics while 50 percent said Obama is hitting below the belt. Moreover, more than half of voters said campaign ads did matter, and most of those folks sided with Clinton.

Despite the bruising battle for the Democratic nomination, large majorities will be satisfied with either Clinton (72 percent) or Obama (63 percent) as the nominee.

If Clinton is the nominee, 16 percent of Obama’s voters in Pennsylvania say they will vote for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and 13 percent will not vote for president in November. Sixty-eight percent say they will support Clinton.

In an Obama-McCain matchup 26 percent of Clintons supporters say they will vote for McCain and 17 percent would stay home instead of voting for him. Over half of her supporters would still come out and vote for Obama in November.

Obama continues to draw the overwhelming majority of black voters, 89 to 11 percent and 61 percent of young voters. But in older, whiter Pennsylvania, that made it a real struggle so far for him.

The exit polling data was based on 2,217 responses of people who went to the polls. Of those people, one in four made up their mind within the last week, with about one in 10 saying their decision was made Tuesday.

Thirteen percent of voters were newly branded Democrats. About half of party-switchers had been registered Republicans. Another 3 percent were first time voters in Pennsylvania.

Click here to read all the poll results.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.