Every state where the presidential race is contested or there is a competitive Senate race is represented, including Indiana and Missouri. | AP Photo Exit polls will skip 22 states this year

The consortium of news networks that commissions election exit polls will survey 28 states on Tuesday, eschewing state-level polls in many smaller and less-competitive states.

In recent elections, the National Election Pool — which includes The Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News — and Edison Research, which conducts the exit poll, have eliminated state-level surveys in an effort to cut costs. In 2012, there were 31 state-level exit polls, with exit pollsters skipping 19 states, plus the District of Columbia.


The list of state-level exit polls this year includes the 11 states POLITICO identified as Electoral College battlegrounds — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin — plus 16 other larger or borderline-competitive states.

While the list hasn’t been officially announced, ABC News, a pool member, has posted exit-poll links for those states on its website. The list was also confirmed to POLITICO by two sources with knowledge of the selected states who were not authorized by the pool to speak publicly.

The list includes Texas, where there was no state exit poll four years ago. It also includes the nation's most populous state, California, though it isn’t expected to be competitive this year.

Every state where the presidential race is contested or there is a competitive Senate race is represented, including Indiana and Missouri.

The most-populous states without exit polls are bright-blue Massachusetts and solid-red Tennessee. And while the gubernatorial races are tight in Vermont and West Virginia, there won’t be state-level exit polls there.

Interviewers will be asking voters to complete questionnaires on Tuesday even in places where there will be no state-level exit polls. Interviews will take place in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, for the national exit poll for president and Congress. But there won’t be enough interviews in 22 states, plus the District, to make state-level estimates about the race.

In addition to the exit polls produced by the National Election Pool, there are a number of new projects in the works from other media outlets on Tuesday, including a POLITICO/Morning Consult survey of voters on Election Day.

Here’s the list of states where there will be exit polls on Tuesday:

Arizona

California

Colorado

Florida

Georgia

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kentucky

Maine

Michigan

Minnesota

Missouri

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

Ohio

Oregon

Pennsylvania

South Carolina

Texas

Utah

Virginia

Washington

Wisconsin

And the list of states without sufficient interviews for state-level exit polls:

Alabama

Alaska

Arkansas

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Hawaii

Idaho

Kansas

Louisiana

Maryland

Massachusetts

Mississippi

Montana

Nebraska

North Dakota

Oklahoma

Rhode Island

South Dakota

Tennessee

Vermont

West Virginia

Wyoming