Super Tuesday: Healthcare key issue for voters, exit polls show

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders during a stop in Denver, Colorado. Photo / AP

Among the many issues crossing American voters' minds today was the future of the country's healthcare system, as Democratic primary voters sought to choose between candidates with competing visions.

Primary voters in two states — Vermont, home state of single-payer advocate Sanders, and nearby Maine — stood out in preliminary exit polls as particularly supportive of a major policy change on this front.

In each state, roughly seven in 10 primary voters said they would support "replacing all private health insurance with a single government plan for everyone."

Voters in states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee were more closely divided in exit polls, though more supported than opposed single-payer healthcare in each state. Division wasn't limited to the South, though: In early exit polls from Massachusetts, supporters of single-payer healthcare were only outpacing opponents by about 10 percentage points.

Voters in every Super Tuesday Democratic primary consistently identified healthcare as the most important issue to them among four issues tested, ranging from close to half of voters in Oklahoma and Maine, to four in 10 voters or more in every other state except Colorado and California, according to preliminary exit polls.

In Colorado, healthcare was the most important issue for nearly four in 10 voters.

In California, it was the top issue for roughly a third of voters. In second place was climate change, which was consistently rated the most important issue for about two in 10 to three in 10 voters. Alabama had the smallest proportion of voters prioritising climate change, with a share in the low teens.

Democratic voters from coast to coast were also focused on finding a candidate who can beat US President Donald Trump rather than someone who agrees with them on major issues.

Early exit poll results showed majorities across all 12 states where exit polls were conducted - from North Carolina to Texas to California - said they would rather the Democratic Party nominate a candidate who can beat Trump over someone who agrees with them on the issues.

Of course, that instinct may drive voters to support different candidates. In earlier contests, majorities of voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries prioritised electability, but voters differed sharply, with Sanders winning New Hampshire and Biden winning South Carolina.