Florida Exit Poll Highlights

— Some highlights of data from exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks in the Florida presidential primary Tuesday. All numbers final.

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IT'S THE MODERATES AGAINST THE CONSERVATIVES, AGAIN

Florida Republicans split based on ideology, with John McCain winning 43 percent of moderates and Mitt Romney winning 37 percent of conservatives. The same thing happened when McCain ran against George W. Bush in Florida in 2000, when McCain won moderates and Bush won conservatives. But this time McCain won more than twice as many conservatives as he did in 2000, and Huckabee also took conservatives away from Romney. Giuliani took moderates away from McCain, leaving no one with a majority. Plus, Romney has less crossover appeal with moderates than Bush had in 2000. In Tuesday's primary, McCain won among independents but tied Romney among Republicans. McCain hasn't won among Republicans in any state so far this year.

STRAIGHT TALK OR THE RIGHT WALK?

When asked to choose among four candidate qualities as most important to their vote, more Florida Republican voters chose "shares my values" than any of the other three. 35 percent of values voters supported Romney, and another 28 percent supported Huckabee. McCain won among those voters who favored a candidate who says what he believes, and among those who favored a candidate with the right experience. McCain won more than half the vote of those few Republicans looking for a candidate who has the best chance to win in November.

WHAT TO DO WITH ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS?

Sixteen percent of Republicans cited illegal immigration as the biggest problem facing the country, a group that voted strongly for Romney. The mostly non-Hispanic, white electorate favored deporting illegal immigrants to their country of origin by a 4-to-10 margin, with the rest split between favoring a temporary worker policy and allowing illegals to apply for citizenship. Just 18 percent of Hispanic voters favored deporting illegal immigrants. McCain, who co-sponsored a failed bipartisan immigration bill that was criticized by many Republicans as too lenient, was supported by 54 percent of Hispanic voters.

THE LITMUS TEST ISSUE

Republicans divided again on the abortion issue, with 6 in 10 anti-abortion Republicans supporting Romney and Huckabee, and about the same proportion of abortion-rights Republicans supporting McCain and Giuliani. Fifty-two percent of Republicans voting in Florida said abortion should be illegal at least in most cases, while 43 percent said abortion should mostly be legal. Born-again Christians, the base of Huckabee's support in earlier primaries, were splitting their votes about evenly between Huckabee and Romney, with one-fourth supporting McCain.

ANGRY AT BUSH?

Thirty-two percent of Republicans in Florida said they had negative feelings about the Bush administration, including 6 percent who said they were angry at Bush. McCain won among Republicans who look negatively at the Bush years, and ran about even with Romney among the majority of Republicans who look fondly upon the Bush administration.

RISING IMPORTANCE OF FALLING ECONOMY

Given four choices, 45 percent of Florida Republican primary voters said the economy is the most important issue facing the country. Terrorism was picked by 21 percent of voters, while immigration and Iraq were picked by relatively few. The economy also was the top issue out of three choices for voters in the Democratic primary, which none of the candidates contested because of questions about whether Florida's Democratic delegates will be seated at the convention. The economy has been seen as increasingly important since the start of the 2008 presidential nomination season. McCain won the votes of Republican voters most concerned about the economy, getting 40 percent of their support. Clinton easily won the support of those Democrats who were most concerned about the issue.

MAYBE THEY LIKE THAT HE RESPECTS HIS MOTHER?

Senior citizens were a dominant group voting in the Republican primary, and they supported McCain over Romney by a 10-point margin. McCain is 71, and his 95-year-old mother has joined him on the campaign trail. Younger voters split more evenly between McCain and Romney, and the youngest of voters, those under 30, were one of the few groups among whom Huckabee was even competitive.

WHAT ABOUT RUDY?

Rudy Giuliani, once considered the front-runner in the Republican race, struggled to pull ahead of Huckabee for even a convincing third-place showing. Giuliani failed to win any demographic group, and was even left to fight with Romney and McCain for the support of voters who cared about terrorism, his leading issue.

WELL, IF HE'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR THEM ...

Forty-two percent of Republican voters said Gov. Charlie Crist's endorsement of McCain was an important factor in their vote, a group that voted overwhelmingly for McCain. But Crist's endorsement may have been just the icing on the cake, as most of these voters also said they had made up their minds well ahead of Crist's weekend announcement. On the Democratic side, the endorsement of Barack Obama by several members of the Kennedy family was rated important by 49 percent of voters in that primary, but again most of those voters said they already had made up their minds by the time of the announcement Monday.

WILL RACE BE THE DOMINANT FACTOR FOR DEMOCRATS?

Many analysts are looking to the Democratic race in Florida to see whether a racial divide has opened after South Carolina's fractious fight. In Tuesday's primary, Obama took 73 percent of the black vote and 23 percent of the white vote, while Clinton won among whites and got 25 percent of the black vote. Black women supported Obama in the same proportion as black men, while white women came out strongly for Clinton. Clinton even had a strong showing among white men, a group she lost to John Edwards in South Carolina.

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From interviews of 1,516 Republican primary voters and 1,501 Democratic primary voters conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International in 40 precincts across Florida on Tuesday. The samples include 235 Republican voters and 294 Democratic voters who voted early or absentee and were surveyed in the past week by telephone. Margin of sampling error plus or minus 4 percentage points for each primary.