The Hiller Instinct: Exit Polls

I hope I'm not giving too much away by saying that John Kerry is doing very well in Massachusetts, and that - if all the states go the way Massachusetts appears to be going - this will be a super Tuesday for Kerry.

Exit polls - taken here as voters actually voted - also tell us the mood of Massachusetts Democratic primary participants.

Begin with their feelings about the Bush administration: 53 percent say they're angry, and another 33 percent dissatisfied, but not angry. Just 11 percent say they're satisfied...and only 3 percent call themselves enthusiastic."

The quick conclusion might be that those numbers reflect the war in Iraq.

But the exit polls say they don't.

Asked which one issue mattered most, more than a third of Democratic primary voters said the economy and jobs, while health care and Medicare - at 20 percent - was tied with the war in Iraq.

The emphasis on the economy was underlined when voters were asked a question critical in all presidential elections: are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Comparing their family's financial situation now with what it was in 2000, 24 percent said it's better, but 36 percent said it's worse. 31 percent said "about the same."

While we had a pretty good idea how the Massachusetts primary would end before it began, here's something we don't know you might want to look for tonight: what percentage of the state's votes will Kerry get?

In 1998, Mike Dukakis won the Massachusetts primary with 60 percent - so use that for comparison.