in from our exit polls. david chalian, our political director, is back with us. what else are you learning, david? as we ve been saying, it s not joust overall turnout that matters, it s the composite of the electorate that matters. we re learning more information about the breakdown of the electorate. take a look at this breakdown by race. 65% of today s voters are white, 30% are black, 2% latino. look at that african-american number. we ve been talking about it a lot. that matches sort of the record high turnout we saw in barack obama s elections in 2008 and 2012. these numbers are preliminarily. they may change throughout the night. but these early exit poll numbers show there is a really big african-american turnout today in alabama and we ll see if that holds as real votes come in after polls close. we also took a look at party affiliation. take a look at this. 37% of today s voters are democrats, 43% are republicans. 20% are independents. that is a democratic electorate that lo
seen in 2008 in alabama. and then, of course, the born again evangelical factor, 43% of today s alabama voters are, indeed, born again or evangelical christians. 57% are not. that s a little less than what we saw last year in the presidential election in 2012 when it was 47% evangelical. and abortion has been a huge issue because the candidates differ dramatically on this. 40% of alabama voters today say it should be legal in some or all cases. 54%, a clear majority, say abortion should be illegal. the roy moore position in some or all cases. all right, david, stand by. we re going to get back to you with more exit poll numbers. john king is still with us. map this out for us. the state of alabama, african-americans, evangelical voters, all very, very critical. if the numbers david gave you hold up, african-american turnout spiking, evangelical turnout lower than the presidential election, doug jones will be in play. emphasis on if they hold up.
and here, barbara mikulski, and those are folks who ran to advance civil rights, to expand opportunity for everybody, but also to deal with poverty head on and say it s unacceptable for us to allow poverty to persistinse a country as wealthy as ours. that s what you have seen, each of these politicians as you go through it, are really on fire for lifting people up and frankly practicing the sort of politics that says when we all do better, we all do better. mm-hmm. and i want to ask about a couple exit poll numbers showing that 58% of white college educated women supporting the democrat, northam, there in virginia. 91% of black women putting dems over the top overall. what does this say about the power of the female vote come next year? women, frankly, decide who wins in our you know, women
way it is. the senate failed on obamacare repeal. health care was the number one issue. and the economy is number two. and tax cuts are up right now. so we better get that one through. is that a yes or no? you look at the exit poll numbers. twice as many people in virginia came out to vote in part to opposition of this president than in support of this president. so yes or no, say it like it is, referendum on this president or no? it depends on what you mean on on the agenda, no. i always deal in policy, not on personality and all the drama. on the man. on the man. i don t think it s ever a matter of personality. last night, the evidence was health care and the economy growth. economy in virginia is failing right now. and government jobs are tied to that economy. and so it s staggering that northern virginia can go along with such low economic growth. congressman, another way to ask that is, do you think the president helped or hurt republicans in virginia?
asset for us, but we have to have ideas, we have to have new faces and fresh ideas. so, alice, to that point, if democrats put up what david gergen is saying they must put up to have these important victories, fresh faces, new ideas, how does that counter what scott taylor said at the beginning here, you heard him say that the republican representative from virginia, that this is a referendum on the administration. that the exit poll numbers show us, twice as many people came out to vote in part in opposition to the president than came out to vote in support of the president. to clearly, the democrats, new faces are great, but new ideas or the ideas that voters are concerned with are the key issue. that s where they missed the boat in the presidential election. they need to focus on the economy and issues that are really core for voters across america, and especially in the rust belt states. i think they learned that lesson. many of them did focus on the economy in order to win in