Voters who went to the polls on Tuesday were on the whole older and whiter than people who voted in the last midterm elections in 2018.
Posted at 1:12 a.m.
This year, about one in ten voters were under 30, while about a third of the electorate was 65 or older. Four years ago, about 13% of voters were under 30, and about 26% were 65 or older, according to preliminary national results from the exit poll conducted by Edison Research for CNN.
Additionally, white voters with college degrees made up about 40% of the electorate on Tuesday, up from 31% four years ago. In all, some 76% of voters in the midterm elections this year were white, and about 24% were members of an ethnic minority. By comparison, at the last US Census of 2020, 60% of Americans were white, while 40% were from an ethnic minority.
Hispanic voters
In the United States, Hispanics are the second most populous demographic group: 19% of the population identify with them. Historically, Democrats have been popular with Latinos, and they still are, even if the margin is narrowing.
According to a recent survey washington post-Ipsos, Democrats have a 27-point advantage with voters who identify as Hispanic, a significant drop from the nearly 40-point advantage the party had in 2018.
And the cliché that Hispanics care most about migration policies no longer holds: This year, the topic was ninth on their minds, far behind the economy, which is number one, according to a Pew Research Center poll.