Citing Familiar Issues, Students Prefer Obama

Like most college students across the country, Harvard undergraduates appear set to vote overwhelmingly in support of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama when the polls open on Tuesday, according to a recent Crimson survey.

Eighty-two percent of the 563 students that responded to The Crimson’s poll indicated that they intend to vote for Obama in the upcoming election, compared to 11 percent who favored Republican candidate John McCain.

Just over half of those polled said they are registered Democrats—and slightly over half identified themselves as liberal. Among the 27 percent who called themselves independent, Obama was still comfortably ahead—with 78 percent registering their intent to vote for the Democratic candidate.

Students say that they have paid close attention to political news amid the longest campaign season in memory and an election that many pundits have termed pivotal. Eighty two percent of respondents said they receive updates about the campaign at least a few times per week, with more than half of those following the news from the campaign trail on a daily basis.

Harvard’s academic-minded student body expressed strong disapproval of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who has been widely mocked for her folksy style and gaffes in the national press. Palin drew the resounding disapproval of Obama supporters, 89 percent of whom deemed her selection to be a “bad” or “terrible” move on McCain’s part.

By contrast, only 19 percent of McCain supporters had similarly-negative feelings about Obama’s selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden for his vice-presidential running mate. But of the 95 percent of students who have decided on a presidential candidate, almost a third said that vice-presidential choice bore on their decision.

The turmoil in financial markets has become a critical issue for both presidential candidates, and Harvard students’ concerns kept with national trends. Respondents gave the crisis 4.4 of 5 on a scale of importance (with 5 being “very important”), the highest rating among 10 commonly-discussed issues.

Students named education the second most important issue, with healthcare, the war, and the environment coming in at third, fourth, and fifth. Generally, students said they care about all of the major issues under debate, as none of the ten subjects received a rating below 3.0 in importance.

Obama supporters were particularly adamant, rating eight of the ten issues as more important to them than McCain voters did. Only on taxes and security did McCain supporters indicate more interest.

The Crimson administered its questionnaire to a random sample of 1,000 undergraduates using the iCommons polling interface. Harvard FAS ID’s were used as logins to prevent repeat voting and responses from students not included in the survey sample. The poll carried a margin of error of 3.9 percent.

—Prateek Kumar, Clifford M. Marks, and Nathan C. Strauss contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Staff writer Maxwell L. Child can be reached at mchild@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.