MARSHALL — Exit polls conducted by Southwest Minnesota State University students this fall showed “clear wins” in Lyon County for candidates like Donald Trump, Amy Klobuchar, Michelle Fischbach and Chris Swedzinski.

However, the exit polls still revealed some surprises, students said. Some Lyon County voters didn’t vote completely along party lines.

“Quite a few people split,” said SMSU senior Cassidy Herding, one of the students conducting the exit poll. Among the survey respondents, 90% of Trump voters supported U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach, but only 71% supported Republican Senate candidate Royce White.

“We expected more people to vote for Royce White,” Herding said.

Among respondents supporting Kamala Harris, 97% also supported Sen. Amy Klobuchar. However, only 72% of Harris voters supported DFL House candidate AJ Peters.

SMSU students created the exit poll as a project for their political research methods class, Herding said. Students collected a total of 443 exit poll surveys from locations around Lyon County.

The total number of surveys included 329 collected near polling locations on Election Day, as well as 114 surveys gathered at the Lyon County Government Center during the early voting period between Oct. 21 and Nov. 4.

“We were kind of scattered around the county,” at locations including Marshall’s three voting precincts, and the cities of Tracy, Cottonwood and Minneota, Herding said.

Herding said students hoped to answer questions like whether age affected how people voted. Other questions on the exit poll were designed to look at demographics, and what issues were most important to area voters.

“One of the big (issues) was definitely the economy,” Herding said. “Quite a few people selected immigration.”

Exit poll results said Lyon County voters were sharply polarized in their views over whether the country was on the right track. Of the survey participants, 56% said they thought the U.S. was on the wrong track, 21% thought the country was on the right track, and 22% said they weren’t sure. Of the respondents who thought the country was on the wrong track, 70% supported Trump.

The vast majority of respondents who thought the U.S. was on the right track supported Harris, at 93%. Of the voters who weren’t sure where the country was headed, 69% were Harris supporters.

Exit poll results also said men and women were divided in their choices for president. Among survey participants, female voters preferred Harris by a 59% to 39% margin. Male voters preferred Trump by a 56% to 37% margin.

Exit poll participants who supported Trump said “experience” and “agrees with me on the issues” were his most important traits as a presidential candidate. The majority of participants who supported Harris listed “temperament” as the most important candidate trait, survey results said.

Herding said students weren’t sure what kind of response to expect from voters as they conducted the exit poll, especially with this year’s presidential race being so polarized. But the surveys went well.

“We want to give a big thank-you to the community for being so great to us,” she said.