Poll Shows Kerry Leading with College Students
By Byron LaMasters
Good news in this poll. It shows Kerry with a ten-point lead among college students and an increase in Democratic Party identification over the past year among students. Most college students polled also support gay marriage. CNN reports:
College students favor Democratic presidential contender Sen. John Kerry over President Bush by a 10-point margin and have become substantially more dissatisfied with Bush over the past six months, according to a poll released Thursday.
The survey by Harvard University's Institute of Politics (IOP) comes amid increasing focus on the nation's youngest voters.
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The Harvard poll of 1,205 college students, conducted March 13-23, found Kerry leading Bush 48 percent to 38 percent, with independent Ralph Nader drawing 5 percent. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
The poll suggests "Kerry's support is soft," however, because many who say they'd vote for him simply want an alternative to Bush, the IOP said in a news release.
Thirty-seven percent of students said they don't know enough about the senator from Massachusetts to have formed an opinion about him.
Since a survey by the same organization in October, Bush's job approval rating plummeted 14 points, from 61 percent to 47 percent, while support for the war in Iraq dropped from 58 percent to 49 percent, the poll found.
Some recent signs of economic recovery have failed to give Bush a boost on one key topic: two-thirds of students polled said they believe it will be difficult to find a job after graduation, a figure nearly identical to the October poll.
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The poll also found that unlike in the general population, the majority of college students surveyed -- 57 percent -- support legalizing same-sex marriage.
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The largest number, 41 percent, identified themselves as independent.
The survey found that fewer now identify as Republicans -- 24 percent, down from 31 percent in the fall. Democrat identification increased from 27 percent to 32 percent.
Overall, good news.
More on the survey, here.
Posted by Byron LaMasters at April 15, 2004 10:57 PM
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A friend of mine at work, who is a college student as well, was once a supporter of Bush, but the whole war situation, combined with him reading newspapers more than receiving his news from television, has turned him into a Kerry backer.
