--- title: Election: Exit Polls Show Thoughts on Clinton or Trump description: Despite showing up at the polls, voters are not optimistic about either major party candidate, according to the first exit poll findings. canonical: https://time.com/4563167/cnn-exit-poll-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-08T22:43:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T16:17:07.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Early Exit Polling: Voters Not Optimistic About Clinton or Trump og:description: 8 in 10 voters said they were at least somewhat confident the election results og:url: https://time.com/4563167/cnn-exit-poll-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt37133ba95c748c09/6988ad84196cf4e09803de2f/early-votes-come-in.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Nation Goes To The Polls In Contentious Presidential Election Between Hillary Clinton And Donald Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Early Exit Polling: Voters Not Optimistic About Clinton or Trump twitter:description: 8 in 10 voters said they were at least somewhat confident the election results twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt37133ba95c748c09/6988ad84196cf4e09803de2f/early-votes-come-in.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Early Exit Polling: Voters Not Optimistic About Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=cce562e4-fa04-41d5-9132-a22236de77a7&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Trump and Clinton Arrived to Vote [Watch (HLS stream): Trump and Clinton Arrived to Vote](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/PSjvE2w2.m3u8) (0:52)  _Published 2016-11-08. Donald Trump arrived in midtown Manhattan just before 11am local time Tuesday, to cast his vote. Clinton arrived to vote in Chappaqua, New York, shortly after 8 a.m. local time._  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Updated: Dec 13, 2023 4:17 PM UTCPublished: Nov 8, 2016 10:43 PM UTC  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Updated: Dec 13, 2023 4:17 PM UTCPublished: Nov 8, 2016 10:43 PM UTC Despite showing up at the polls, voters are not optimistic about either major party candidate, according to the first exit poll findings. Just about 4 in 10 voters said they were optimistic or excited about a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton presidency, [CNN reports](http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/07/politics/live-election-results-coverage/index.html?lf-content=176419803:lb-post-7119c79bd565a8ff30536efe3b65e93e@livefyre.com&hubRefSrc=permalink), and nearly 7 in 10 said they were angry about the way government works. [ABC reports](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/election-2016-national-exit-poll-results-analysis/story?id=43368675) that 59% of voters believe Clinton is untrustworthy and 65% felt the same about Trump. Clinton did better than Trump when asked about qualifications and temperament, but more voters felt the most important thing in a candidate this year is to bring about change than voters who felt experience is more important. A majority of voters said the economy was their most important issue, but they were evenly divided about which candidate would be the better choice with that in mind. In terms of demographic breakdowns, exit polls show at least one marked shift from 2012, [NBC reports](http://www.nbcnews.com/card/nbc-news-exit-poll-trump-leads-among-non-college-whites-n680321). While Trump is leading with whites without a college degree, college educated whites, who are normally reliably Republican and who broke for Mitt Romney by 14 points last election, are now about evenly split between Trump and Clinton. Despite Trump’s insistence that the election could be rigged, 8 in 10 voters said they were at least somewhat confident the election results would be accurate. This exit poll was conducted for networks by Edison Research. Results are based on interviews with 15,455 voters, and have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. ## Transcript [ APPLAUSE ] [ FOREIGN ] Thank you, thank you. Mr. Trump what are you hearing about early returns so far from your team? Very good. Very good? Everything's good. 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