College Students Support President Bush

A new nationwide poll of 1,202 undergraduates surprisingly finds that college students are Independent, but more Republican than Democratic. The poll, conducted by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, finds college students are significantly more supportive of President Bush than the general public.

The Christian Science Monitor summarized the poll's results concerning the political views of college students:

"College students are highly independent ... but they slightly lean Republican: 31 percent Republican, 27 percent Democrat, 38 percent independent."

On student support for President Bush: "Defying conventional political wisdom, college students support President Bush. His approval rating is about 10 points higher among college students than the general population."

On measuring students' political activity: "College students are not political slackers, as a lot of folks may think. These numbers indicate that people do care. They do involve themselves in public service activities. And they do plan to participate in the 2004 election."

On why only 28 percent of students consider Iraq as a concern to them: "Without any personal vulnerability ... they have disconnected a lot of what is happening with the war from what they think about politics, because it has not affected them."

In another surprise, The Harvard Crimson’s story on the survey reveals a preference for Senator Lieberman.

Democratic college students slightly favored Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., over former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, 17 percent to 16 percent, among 2004 democratic presidential hopefuls.

Retired General Wesley K. Clark trailed with 9 percent, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, who is scheduled to visit Harvard on Monday, followed with 8 percent.

In a commentary about this survey, Real Clear Politics writes:

it is interesting to see a group which has traditionally been perceived to be quite liberal (or at the very least extremely sympathetic to liberal ideals) now so completely disjointed from the base of the Democratic party and even further to the right on issues of terrorism and national security than the country as a whole.