Fred Barnes misstates CNN exit poll results in “Same Old Obama”

Today, I came across an article written by Fred Barnes called “Same Old Obama.”  It was one of the featured articles on RealClearPolitics meaning it will likely garner quite a bit of attention.  The article claims that President Obama is being partisan by touting tax rate increases for the top two percent of earners.  Mr. Barnes attempts to make his point by saying:

The voters, he said, endorsed the idea, in effect giving him a mandate. The majority of voters agreed with me, Obama told reporters. “By the way, more voters agreed with me on this issue than voted for me.”

According to the exit poll, that’s not true. It found that 47 percent of voters prefer to raise taxes only on the wealthy. Obama got 51 percent of the total national vote.

While it is true that President Obama garnered 51 percent of the popular vote, Mr. Barnes is wrong about the exit poll numbers.  It should be stated that Mr. Barnes does not source any of his information, but the number he mentioned matches only the CNN exit poll.  Exit polling conducted by CNN found three things:

The CNN exit poll did find that 47 percent of Americans believe that tax rates should be increased for the top two percent, but it also found that 13 percent of Americans believe that tax rates should be raised for everyone.  In the end, the CNN exit poll found that 60 percent of Americans want taxes to go up on the wealthy, at the very least.

It is quite clear that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents agree that taxes should go up on the top two percent.  Mr. Barnes should correct his article to reflect the facts and the will of the American people.