IOP Releases College Poll

A national poll of college students released by the Institute of Politics (IOP) Wednesday shows that since an initial study in March, nearly one out of every five students surveyed have changed their minds about which presidential candidate they intend to vote for in November.

The study also shows Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., leading President George W. Bush by 20 points among college students—almost double the margin Kerry enjoyed in March.

IOP Research Director David C. King, who was in charge of administering the study, said his intention was to gauge the volatility of the collegiate vote. To do so, King and others at the IOP called back the 1,205 students from a national poll taken by the IOP in March.

With a 95 percent degree of certainty, the study compares the responses of 390 students in July to those they gave in March, King said. He said the demographics of the new and March studies are statistically indistinguishable.

The study finds that 19 percent of the students changed the candidate for whom they intend to vote since March. Nearly 60 percent of those students chose to ally themselves with Kerry. About 20 percent changed to support Bush, and the remaining 20 percent switched their intended vote to independent candidate Ralph Nader.

King, who is also an associate professor at the Kennedy School of Government, said the volatility of the youth vote—which he said is higher than that of the overall voting population—shows that the so-called “undecided” voters who do not identify with a candidate until late in the campaign are not the only votes up for grabs.

“It is the case that people change their minds,” King said.

Most of those surveyed who switched to Kerry objected to some aspect of the war in Iraq, King said.

But Harvard Republican Club (HRC) Secretary Lauren K. Truesdell ’06 said a Wednesday United Press International article that featured unnamed sources claiming three nuclear warheads were found in Tikrit, Iraq, could cause a swing back towards Bush.

“I obviously have no more knowledge of the truth of that [particular] article than anyone else, but if something big happens to justify the war, that will be a big help to Bush,” Truesdell said.

HRC president Mark T. Silvestri ’05 was in Honduras and could not be reached for comment.

The poll, which had a five-point margin of error, also showed Kerry with 55 percent of the student vote, to Bush’s 35 percent. In March, Kerry had 50 percent of the vote and Bush 39 percent.

“What you could legitimately say is [Kerry’s] lead is statistically significantly higher among these students,” King said. “Does it mean it’s actually a 5-point gain for Kerry on top of a 4-point loss for Bush? That’s in question.”

The data show that 44 percent of students who switched their support to Kerry from Bush said their primary reason for the move was a general dislike of Bush.

“Young people I think are not embracing John Kerry. They disdain George Bush,” King said. “This election among college students is more of a referendum of George Bush than moving to John Kerry. That means it is still Bush’s race to win or lose.”

Harvard College Democrats President Andrew J. Frank ’05 said the positive results for his party are indicative of Kerry’s campaigning efforts.

“We’ve known for a while that Bush is not popular. His approval ratings have dropped below 50 percent,” Frank said. “[Voters] may not be completely enthusiastic about Kerry, but he may have relieved a lot of their fears.”

But King cautioned that the results are not as positive for Kerry as the 20-point margin might seem to indicate.

“If I were John Kerry, I wouldn’t take a whole lot of comfort in these poll results,” King said. “The students appear to be pretty fickle—20 percent have changed their minds over the past five months, and most of them are with Kerry because they don’t like Bush.”

Chair of the IOP survey committee Jonathan S. Chavez ’05 said the survey might not be as accurately representative of the national collegiate population as the March IOP poll because of the decreased sample size.

Half of the surveyed students said Kerry addressed issues they cared about, whereas only 26 percent felt that way about Bush—a result that King said puzzled him.

“It hasn’t seemed to me that either candidate has done an especially effective job reaching out to younger people, and both tend to speak about the same issues,” King said.

Truesdell cited what she said were historical patterns of college students being more liberal than the rest of the population as driving the perception of Bush’s inattention to young voters.

“I think the Bush campaign probably knows they are weaker in the college student demographic than they are perhaps in other demographics,” Truesdell said.

But Truesdell added that she did not expect such a big gap between the candidates on the topic of issues.

“I’m surprised because Bush has been talking about issues that matter to students—especially the economy, which is in a great recovery right now,” Truesdell said. “[Respondents] might have interpreted the question as which candidate is talking about the issues in a way that they like, since both candidates are talking about the same issues.”

Chavez said he was not surprised by the perception that Kerry paid more attention to students than Bush.

“Bush is not caring about this generation and is not talking about the issues students care about,” Chavez said. “Simply put, Kerry is.”

The poll may have shown somewhat inflated results for Democrats because independent voters—who King said are easily swayed—might have been influenced by increased media attention to the Kerry camp after Sen. John R. Edwards, D-N.C., was chosen as the vice-presidential candidate.

Three-quarters of the poll respondents—5 percent more than in the March poll—said they will “definitely be voting” in November.

Frank said the high results were an indication of a highly polarized country.

But Truesdell said she was skeptical about the high voting rate.

“Everyone says they have the intention of voting, but when it comes down to it, probably 40 percent or less will wind up voting,” Truesdell said. “You know how college students are.”

—Staff writer Alan J. Tabak can be reached at tabak@fas.harvard.edu.