Elections

Married voters favored Romney by 14 percentage points

Font Size:

While President Barack Obama won unmarried voters handily Tuesday night, he failed to win over married voters, exit polls show.

Fox News’ national exit polls reveal that Obama lost married voters by 14 percentage points, 42 percent to Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s 56 percent. The 14 percentage point gap represents a ten percentage point difference from 2008, when exit polls showed Obama lost married people by just 5 percentage points.

According to national exit polls, the president won the women vote by ten percentage points, 55 percent to Romney’s 44 percent. Obama, however, lost married women by 7 percentage points, 46 percent to Romney’s 53 percent.

Romney’s victory among married women represented a four percentage point increase in the gap compared to 2008, when Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain won married women by a slim 3-point margin, 50 percent to Obama’s 47 percent.

To be sure, Obama devastated Romney among unmarried women 67 percent to 31 percent, and unmarried men by 16 percentage points, according to the Fox exit polls.

Romney won men overall by 7 percentage points, and married men by 22 percentage points.

Married people comprised 60 percent of the electorate.

The number of married American adult has declined from 72 percent in 1960 to 51 percent in recent years, according to the Pew Research Center.

Follow Caroline on Twitter