I believe that the strongest statement that we can legitimately draw is that
(1) since men have in the past more strongly supported Republicans than women and
(2) we can expect each to actually vote in roughly equal numbers as they have in the past,
that a 1 point lead with an imbalance of 59-41 is not a lead, and may well indicate that Senator Kerry actually trails.
Further than that statement, I am reluctant to say more and to apply any figures from the previous election since the current race is not all that similar to the previous race. Last time, neither candidate was a presidential incumbent; this time, the Democratic candidate is far more to the left than even Vice President Gore; and finally, we are indeed in the post-911 period.
Finally, these numbers are very, very preliminary and cannot be considered indicative. Just as you might flip a coin 1000 times and easily see the first 20 flips consist of 15 heads and 5 tails, that doesn't indicate that you will see 750 heads and 250 tails (and in fact, you are quite unlikely to see such a ratio with an honest coin after 1000 flips.)
Instead, I believe that the political factors in this race, not any technical ones, give us great hope of a very strong vote in the Electoral College.
Here's my math on this:
All voters expected to be -
Male voters 53.5% to Women voters 46.5%
The Kerry Gender Advanrage -
Women for Kerry 53.5% to Bush 46.5% (this is half the gap
Gore enjoyed in 2000)
So the above wash out and we would expect exit polls to show 0% gap if they polled an equal number of women and men.
Therefore the expected gap should be 18% for Kerry if 59% of group is women (59-41). So an actual gap of 4% is rather good for Bush.