Prop 19 Lost in California
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Crossing the half hour. It's 4:30 in the morning on the East Coast, it's 1:30 on the West Coast. Sex. Did we get your attention? We're breaking it down this morning to find out how people across the country voted by sex and by age. Christine Romans has got the exit poll up on her right for us this morning. Good morning.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. The exit poll information is in. And you're right, it's fascinating to look at some of these numbers and see who came out to vote. This is what we found when you break it down by sex in the nationwide House races. Total vote by sex, male, 47 percent, female, 53 percent. So you have women more likely to vote this time around than men. Let me go back and give you another one here. Let's break it down further from there by party. Roll it out. The nationwide House vote, take a look at this. When you break out Democrats, women were more likely to be voting, 49 percent of women, 54 percent of men. There you go. And if you take a look at the Republican part of the vote, 55 percent male, 48 percent female. So that's how it breaks down sex by party break down. Let's take a look at race now, John. Let me give it a double tap there. Not too many surprises overall, 78 percent of the vote was white. African-American 10 percent. Latino 8 percent. Asian and others, 4 percent of the vote. And pull back by age now, 18 to 29-year-olds, this is one -- this one kind of surprised me, John. Because we had such a huge youth vote turnout the last election. There's usually a drop off to midterms, but 11 percent the youth vote, 30 to 44 years old, 22 percent, 45 to 64 years olds, those are the baby boomers, 44 percent, 65 and older, 23 percent. So I don't know. Do you see any surprises in there for you?</s>ROBERTS: No, not really. I mean it seemed like a pretty typical midterm elections. One of the big surprises, though, is that among people 18 to 29 years old, fully 50 percent of them now, half of those voters identify themselves as independents. So they're sort of rejecting the tradition of two-party system. We'll see how that plays in to the political landscape in the years to come.</s>ROMANS: The president took a big push yesterday doing radio --</s>ROBERTS: Yes.</s>ROMANS: Trying to kind of energize that youth vote again, carry over from the general election. But 11 percent, I wonder if they're disappointed.</s>ROBERTS: All right. Christine Romans for us this morning with the exit poll out. Thanks -- Kiran.</s>KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: The Republican wave, it did not reach California bucking the national trend. Democrats actually scored big victories in the Senate with incumbent Barbara Boxer holding on to her seat, beating back the Republican challenger Carly Fiorina. And also in the governor's race, Jerry Brown, blast from the past. He was first elected governor in 1974. Headed back to Sacramento after defeating Republican Meg Whitman. The news was not as good for supporters of California's Proposition 19. That was the measure that would have made recreational use of marijuana legal. That went up in smoke. CNN's Ted Rowlands is live in Oakland. There's so much we could do with that, right? But it went the easy route. Hi, Ted.</s>TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kiran. Yes. Someone actually was talking about that and said the first person that says up in smoke as a headline when we were out here earlier this evening -- there were a couple of hundred people here at Oaksterdam University, which is in Oakland, the sort of the heart of the cannabis movement in Oakland which started with the medical side years ago. And this was really the epicenter of this push for Proposition 19 to try to legalize marijuana use for recreation -- marijuana for recreational use. There was a lot of recreational use of it last night as supporters came to watch the returns on a big screen. In the end, though, they did not make it. The young vote did not come out in the numbers that they were hoping and Proposition 19 was defeated.</s>PATRICK TIMMONS, PROP 19 SUPPORTER: Definitely disappointing, but then also, you know, it's an opening. So we've been -- you know, this is all we're going to say. We've managed to forge really in a national and international debate on the issue. So we win -- we win rhetorically, we don't win with votes. And we win next time by making a better coalition.</s>AARON HOUSTON, EXEC. DIR., STUDENTS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY: But for this ballot initiative, people would not have had the national conversation that we're having right now. And this is just going to continue. I mean it's not going to get -- it's not going to get smaller. It's just continuing. It's just getting bigger from here.</s>DEX TER, PROP 19 SUPPORTER: It's not going to stop. It's going to keep coming back. It's positive. It's a positive day.</s>ROWLANDS: Now, from the White House, a statement was released saying -- today saying in part, today California recognized that legalizing marijuana will not make our citizens healthier, solve California's budget crisis or reduce drug violence in Mexico. A lot of people thought -- were watching this very closely and they really thought there was a chance that this would pass, but in the days leading up to the election, the polls started to shift and then on Election Day, we saw that shift go even farther with sort of an overwhelming, and there were a lot of surprised people here, but it was a resounding no by California voters. They're just not ready for recreational use of marijuana -- Kiran.</s>CHETRY: All right. I guess they're sad at -- what did you call it again? What university? Oaksterdam University?</s>ROWLANDS: Oaksterdam. Named after drug-friendly Amsterdam here in Oakland.</s>CHETRY: All right. Well, Ted Rowlands for us this morning. Thanks so much. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to have much more -- John.