Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 9, 1994 TAG: 9411090098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Exit poll results found that about 60 percent of the electorate said North's role in the arms-for-hostages scandal of the mid-1980s was a factor in their decision, and those voters went overwhelmingly for Robb.
The incumbent senator also appeared to benefit from an endorsement from former Gov. Douglas Wilder after their publicized rift. One in eight voters said they would have selected Wilder if he had run for Senate, and of those, more than three-quarters backed Robb.
A majority said both candidates attacked the other unfairly, but the polarized nature of the race hardened individual support. Fewer than four in 10 Virginians who went to the polls said they voted against their candidate's opponent.
The exit poll was based on 1,860 interviews Tuesday outside voting places around the state conducted by Voter News Service, a cooperative of the four television networks and The Associated Press.
Robb, whose campaign didn't rev up until after North spent the summer on the attack, appeared to seal victory with a strong showing among the almost half of Virginians who identified themselves as moderates.
Of those, Robb captured six in 10 votes compared with just three in 10 for North. Robb also took almost one in five votes of those who said they were politically conservative.
Ethics were the major issue of the campaign, which pre-election polls had pegged as a dead heat.
North helped arrange the arms-for-hostages operation in which weapons were sold to Iran to help raise money for anti-communist forces in Nicaragua. He was convicted in 1989 of obstructing Congress and other charges, but the case was overturned on appeal.
Robb attacked North during the campaign for his role in the affair, but the senator was assailed for widely publicized extramarital activity.
Honesty was cited by nearly one-quarter of voters as one of the two most important issues of the campaign. Of people who said they voted for independent candidate Marshall Coleman, almost half cited honesty as a key factor. A wide majority of Coleman voters said neither Robb nor North had the honesty or integrity for the job, the exit poll found.
But Coleman, a former Republican attorney general, didn't appear to have a major impact on the outcome, despite a credible popular vote showing. Nearly half of Coleman supporters said they wouldn't have voted in a North-Robb race. Robb and North would have split the remaining Coleman vote almost evenly, the exit poll found.
On Iran-Contra, almost nine in 10 Robb voters said North's role was a factor in their decision, while about two-thirds of North supporters said it wasn't, the poll found.
by CNB