Polled today say they opposed the tea party. If you look at all the big issues that animated the political debates over the last couple months whether it was cultural wars like abortion or the government shutdown, we see a very strong reaction to this electorate against the conservative side on those issues. One out of five voters, i think this was a high number, said they thought abortion was their top issue in this election. And of those people and the evidence is that theyre prochoice. 6140 percent. We have to keep reminding ourselves that virginia is so important because it is exactly the Bellwether State for the union. Just about exactly what the nation is. I would say virginia has become the new ohio in many ways. Richard nixon used to say its all about ohio. Its all about virginia now. And the fact that women turned out in overwhelming numbers apparently in support of Terry Mcauliffe is big. Lets look at that number. The nbc news exit poll shows women in virginia breaking for
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that s doing damage, because when you look at . the tea party is over, the republican party has a hangover and the people that didn t drink the tea like chris christie are okay tonight. i think virginia is the new ohio. it s the indication of where american politics is headed. if it rejects the tea party, as it looks like they re going to do, that s something that john boehner and mitch mcconnell need to pay close attention to. it s been quite a night, a very interesting night. i agree with both my colleagues here, i think a message is being sent to the main stream of the republican party. if you want to win elections, pay close attention. that s hardball for you, thanks for being with us. polls will be closed in new
we re back with nbc s chuck todd and e.j. dion of the washington post. let s go to chuck todd over across the river. chuck, do you see the beginnings of a headline tomorrow with the total picture we re getting right now? reporter: i think the total cuccineli versus christie. nothing is over here in virginia. you never know, you got to wait until all the votes are counted, but if the exit poll is headed in that direction, i think you re going to have the establishment wing of the republican party, because this happened in their backyard in virginia and see the results, particularly in northern virginia and they re going to say it s time to push back on the tea party wing of the party
households. i would divide it, chris, between northern virginia which as i said is part of metropolitan washington at this point. from richmond north, it s a mixed swing state. and rural southern virginia which is where i think it s fair to say the split by gender is still much more. if you look at the numbers of, say, black men and women. black women, 95 to 5 for mcauliffe over cuccinelli. obviously if you re a minority in this country we know you have other issues besides gender driving your vote. exactly. but after the last election, the gop did an internal autopsy and said, listen, we can t win national elections. and this kind of looks like a national election. if we keep losing all latinos, all african-americans. that s the point i made a minute ago. we can t close the gap. the point i m making here is white men are not a leading indicator of anything.
what joe biden in the last day of the campaign called sinking from another era. think about that for a second. we re all three white guys here by coincidence, but it s a fact. and i m looking at these numbers. it tells you that the white men in this country are not calling the shots. look at these numbers. cuccinelli in the exit poll, he sweeps him by 26 points. yet it looks like mcauliffe is going to win comfortably. yet the white men say we re going for cuccinelli who s gotten some of the worst press, he s made one bad day after another. now look at this. white women. we ve been saying around this table that the white women all women i should say. across the state of virginia are very pro-choice and inclined to give a big number to mcauliffe. 48 to 43 white women went. it s so different than the way white men vote in their own