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2687d ago / 4:59 AM UTC

NBC News Exit Poll: Obama’s Legacy On the Line Amid Broad Voter Dissatisfaction

A majority of voters nationwide approve of how Obama is handling his job as president. But voters are closely divided over the policy direction for the country. Forty-five percent of voters nationwide said the next president should continue Obama’s policies or move policies in a more liberal direction. And a similar share said that policies should move in a more conservative direction, according to NBC News Exit polls. 

President Obama hit the campaign trail over the past few days to remind voters that this election is a referendum on his past eight years in office. A vote for Obama’s former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, would send a clear thumbs up on Obama’s legacy. The election of Trump, a notably unconventional candidate for the GOP, would signal a thumbs down and shift of direction ahead.

But, asking voters to stick with the status quo in sour times is a tough message. The nominating campaigns were marked by lingering economic anxiety over jobs. And the NBC News Exit Polls found voters even more negative about the direction of the country than they were four years ago. About six in 10 voters nationwide said the country is headed in the wrong direction, and about a third thought we are on the right track. Optimism about the direction of the country is down 13 points from four years ago.

Voters today who think the country’s direction is wrong are voting for Trump by a more than two-to-one margin.

And a majority of voters have a gloomy assessment of the federal government. About four in 10 voters are dissatisfied with the way the government is working, and another two in 10 are angry about the way the government is working. Only about a third of voters — 29 percent in NBC Exit Polls — have positive views about the way government is working.

2688d ago / 3:35 PM UTC

Meet the NBC News Exit Poll Desk Team

Throughout Election Night, a team of survey research analysts will be crunching the numbers on who voted, what issues were on their minds and why they voted the way they did.

The team includes Stephanie Psyllos, manager of exit polling, NBC News; Scott Keeter, senior survey advisor at Pew Research Center; Courtney Kennedy, director of survey research at Pew Research Center; Cary Funk, associate director of research at Pew Research Center; Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute; Maureen Michaels, president of Michaels Opinion Research Inc.; Mara Ostfeld, postdoctoral fellow, Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan; Patrick Egan, associate professor of politics and public policy at New York University; Hannah Hartig, assistant director, University of Pennsylvania's Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies; Jennifer Su, senior project director, Princeton Survey Research Associates International; and Andrew Arenge, assistant producer, NBC News. The NBC News Exit Poll Desk works closely with digital editors David Taintor and Elizabeth Johnstone to curate the stories we produce.