Faculty Backs Kennedy, 2 to 1; Tops Stevenson's Margin in '56

The Faculty has voted support for John F. Kennedy by a margin of more than two-to-one.

With over half of the CRIMSON's mail-poll ballots returned from Faculty members in the College and all graduate schools, the Democratic nominees edge has already surpassed that of Adlai Stevenson in 1956. By noon yesterday, Kennedy had 277 votes to Nixon's 117, with 12 undecided.

The results maintained the Faculty's reputation for being more liberal than the student body, which gave Kennedy 56 per cent of its vote. They also indicate a strong shift towards the Democratic Party. In 1952, 56 per cent of the Faculty supported the Republican candidate, while four years ago that total dropped to 36.2 per cent. This year the Faculty Republican vote plummeted to 28.8 per cent.

In winning 68.2 per cent of the vote, Kennedy swept every Faculty field except Naval Science, but had the most trouble at the Business and Medical Schools, which gave him 56.7 per cent and 55.2 per cent of their vote, respectively. Strongest support came from the Social Sciences, which voted an overwhelming 58 to 10 in favor of the Massachusetts Senator. The Humanities and Natural Sciences were close behind with 75.3 per cent and 69 per cent.

Among the Law School Faculty Kennedy won by a 22-11 margin. With a lighter response, the Divinity and Education Faculties picked the Democrats by 81.3 and 83.3 per cent majorities. Throughout the Faculty, 97 per cent stated that they intend to vote.

More Student Poll Results

The most significant secondary correlation of the student poll, published yesterday, seems to be that the Democrats will hold virtually all of the Stevenson vote in the College.

Throughout the University, however, one-third of Eisenhower's 1956 supporters defected to Kennedy. Of 1624 undergraduates who preferred Stevenson in 1956, only 137, or 8.4 per cent, crossed over to Nixon. Percentages of Stevenson-to-Nixon switches were even lower elsewhere; at Racine the crossover was 4.8 per cent, in the Law School 6.5 per cent, and in all other graduate schools Kennedy held all but 3 per cent of the former Stevenson support.

According to the poll, over half of Kennedy's supporters had favored Stevenson before the convention. Nixon was favored before the convention by more than half of his followers.

The pre-convention Rockefeller support split almost exactly in half. In the College, 196 of those who backed the New York Governor in August switched to Nixon, and 195 switched to Kennedy.

In both the College and Racine, Humanities concentrators gave Kennedy his strongest support, with percentages of 68.8 and 72.2, respectively. Natural scientists gave less strong support to Kennedy, giving him majorities of only 61.1 and 60.2 per cent.

The CRIMSON will publish early next week, the final results of the Faculty poll, including those ballots which arrive over the weekend.