Exit Polls: Iraq Hurt Republicans, But Scandal Hurt Worse In U.S. Midterms

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http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=02d20ef4-8d4c-4811-9891-592fba989629

Exit polls: Iraq hurt Republicans, but scandal hurt worse in U.S. midterm

Will Lester, Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, November 07, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Iraq war hurt Republican candidates in the midterm elections, but corruption and scandal were bigger problems for them, exit polls found.

Three-fourths of voters said corruption and scandal were important to their votes, and they were more likely to vote for the Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives. Iraq was important for just two-thirds, and they also leaned toward Democrats.

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For some voters, it was important to have a balance of power in Washington.

Norman Moore, 70, a retired editor from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., decided to vote for Democratic Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. about two or three weeks ago. “I do think Democratic control of Congress would put the brakes on this administration,” he said.

Those most concerned about scandals and corruption — about four in 10 of all voters — were far more likely to vote Democratic. Most white evangelicals said corruption was very important in their vote and almost a third of them voted Democratic, according to a national exit poll of 8,211 voters conducted for AP and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. Results for the full sample were subject to sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points, higher for subgroups.

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