RWU poll finds R.I. voters most concerned about economy, jobs

AN EXIT poll conducted by Roger Williams University students found Rhode Island voters on Tuesday were most concerned about the economy, climate change and national security among a selection of national issues. / COURTESY ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY
AN EXIT poll conducted by Roger Williams University students found Rhode Island voters on Tuesday were most concerned about the economy, climate change and national security among a selection of national issues. / COURTESY ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY

BRISTOL – An exit poll conducted by Roger Williams University students found Rhode Island voters on Tuesday were most concerned about the economy, climate change and national security among a selection of national issues.
Among state issues, voters were focused most heavily on the economy (29 percent), jobs (23 percent), education (11 percent) and corruption (10.5 percent).
The poll, conducted of 666 voters at sites across the state, was not a representative sample. It found 74 percent of those surveyed had voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton, while 17 percent chose Republican nominee Donald Trump.
The exit poll, in that sense, underestimated Trump. The statewide actual results found Clinton had 54 percent of votes cast, to Trump’s 40 percent.
As part of a class lesson, political science students who designed the poll determined after the election that it had under-represented Republicans, males and Latino voters and included too many polling sites in Providence, where Clinton captured 81 percent of the actual vote, according to a news release.
David Moskowitz, one of the class professors, said much of the educational value of the poll came from analyzing the exit poll results in light of the real results.
“It’s one thing to explain what you are supposed to do with a poll but it’s much more valuable to actually do it,” he said.

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