One of my favorite cross-tabulations in the exit poll is its breakdown of when voters made their final decision. In Iowa, Trump faded substantially among late deciders, leading to his second-place finish. Presumably he did better in New Hampshire? Well, sort of. In the table below, which is derived from the exit poll, I’ve grouped voters who decided “just today” or within the last few days into the “late decider” group and those who made a decision “in the last month” or “before that” into the “early decider” group. The results suggest that Trump didn’t do particularly well among late deciders, winning 22 percent of their votes. But he had a lot of voters who were loyal to him from the start:
What about Rubio? Presumably Saturday night’s debate cost him a lot of support? Yes, probably, although overall Rubio actually did slightly better among late deciders (12 percent) than early ones (9 percent). What may have happened is that voters who initially were intrigued by Rubio after Iowa backed away from him after the debate; the 11 percent or so of the vote he’ll get tonight is close to where he was in pre-Iowa polls of New Hampshire.
| CANDIDATE | EARLY DECIDERS | LATE DECIDERS |
|---|---|---|
| Trump | 48 | 22 |
| Kasich | 10 | 22 |
| Cruz | 12 | 12 |
| Bush | 9 | 12 |
| Rubio | 9 | 12 |
| Christie | 4 | 10 |