LANSING – Democrats made up 39 percent of the electorate Tuesday, compared to 30 percent for Republicans, an NBC News exit poll showed, but Republican Governor Rick Snyder won independents by a huge margin to make up the difference.
Snyder won independents by a 61 percent to 34 percent tally, the exit poll showed. Both candidates won about 90 percent of their party’s voters.
Snyder also topped Democrat Mark Schauer by 16 percentage points among men, overcoming Schauer’s 8-point edge among women, the exit poll showed.
On the question of why Democrats won seven of the eight statewide education board seats despite losing the governor’s race and getting pummeled in the U.S. House and legislative races, Ed Sarpolus of Target Insyght said it is because slightly more Democrats (1,367,258) turned out than Republicans (1,277,419).
That is a significant change from 2010 when about 125,000 more Republicans than Democrats voted, Sarpolus said.
Sarpolus said he assembled his data through an exit poll his firm conducted as well as analyzing elections data.
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