A new Inside Higher Ed Student Voice flash survey conducted in partnership with Generation Lab offers insights into the voting behaviors and preferences of college students across the United States. The survey, conducted last month, involved responses from 1,012 college students. The publication says the results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent, showing that college students lean towards Kamala Harris.
The survey primarily aimed to understand students’ political affiliations and voting intentions as the 2024 presidential election approaches, now less than three weeks away. Among the key findings, Vice President Kamala Harris holds a 38-point lead over former President Donald Trump within this demographic. Respondents identified reproductive rights, environmental concerns, and crime/safety as the top three issues influencing their vote.
Another important aspect of the survey was students’ voting logistics. Students were asked if they planned to vote in their college district or the district where they permanently reside, as well as why they made that decision. Swing state dynamics play a role here, as students living in swing states were 11 percentage points more likely than those in non-swing states to vote where they attend school, recognizing the greater effect their vote may have.
An interesting and significant trend emerged regarding racial differences. Black students were less likely to vote in their college district compared to other racial groups. Over twice as many black respondents said they are more knowledgeable about the politics in their home communities, and “by a wide margin,” black students expressed a stronger desire to influence political outcomes in their home regions.
This trend may partly be explained by the influence of parents. Students from blue states studying in swing states are being encouraged by their parents to vote in their college’s district to help sway election outcomes. As the College Fix highlights, “Parents from states like New York and Illinois are urging their kids enrolled at Georgia Tech to register to vote in Georgia for the upcoming presidential election.”
One notable omission in the survey was whether it differentiated students by academic background, geographic location, or other factors influencing voting patterns. Including such data would have allowed for a deeper analysis of how various student subgroups approach the election.
As such, Rob Jenkins—associate professor of English at Georgia State University – Perimeter College, a Higher Education Fellow at Campus Reform, and a Minding the Campus contributor—commented on the findings, stating:
My first thought when I read this was that it’s a big nothingburger. So what? It’s well-documented that Harris does best among single women, and women outnumber men in college by about 60-40–roughly the same margin this article cites in favor of Harris. We also know, as the article itself acknowledges, that people in the college age bracket lean toward Harris. There’s no surprise here, much less some kind of bombshell that’s going to affect the election. It’s like reporting that childless cat ladies are voting for Harris, 70-30. Well, duh. All of this is already baked in.
He further predicted that, “college student turnout in this election will be less than expected. Between a growing conservative movement on campus and the anti-Israel faction that views the Democrats as part of the problem, I just don’t see that much enthusiasm for Harris among college kids.”
Whether Inside Higher Ed’s optimism about voter turnout is warranted or Jenkins’s skepticism proves true, we won’t have to wait long to find out.
Editor’s Note: Inside Higher Ed was contacted to comment on its methodology but did not respond in time for publication.
Image created by Jared Gould using assets from Gage Skidmore’s Trump photo on Wikimedia Commons and his Harris photo on Flickr, with a background by Darren Baker. Source: Adobe Stock, Asset ID# 822032516.
I need help in understanding something from the statement by Rob Jenkins. He says:
“It’s well-documented that Harris does best among single women, and women outnumber men in college by about 60-40–roughly the same margin this article cites in favor of Harris.”
However, 60-40 is not the margin the article cites in favor of Harris. As Jessi Wynn writes, Harris holds a 38 point lead over Trump among college students, not a 20 point lead. Or does Jenkins simply mean Harris holds a 20 point lead over all other options, including Trump, Undecided, Other, and Don’t Plan to Vote?
Eight percent do not intend to vote. There are 15% who are undecided. Are we to assume that all undecideds will swing toward Trump, and that roughly half of those allegedly abstaining from voting will, in fact, also wind up voting for Trump, thus getting us closer to the 60-40 margin Jenkins cites? Perhaps that is what Jenkins meant.
I believe it is true that since 2016 there has been an issue in polling that overestimates support for Democrats because, as Dr. Ed notes in his comment, conservatives (such as himself) are afraid to publicly acknowledge their own political views for fear of negative judgment from the majority. So strong is Dr. Ed’s concern for being negatively judged or retaliated against, that he would not merely tell an inquiring stranger to mind their own business, or say he is unsure, but would actually feel compelled to lie to this stranger by saying he intends to vote for Harris, seemingly without even knowing the political leanings of the questioner! (I am inferring from Dr. Ed’s comment that he is intending to vote for Trump and also that in his hypothetical he knows absolutely nothing about the “unknown stranger.”)
This is likely particularly true on college campuses which are notoriously more liberal leaning environments, which is consistent with the statistics that show that college graduates are more likely to vote Democrat, leading to Trump’s quip in 2016 “I love the poorly educated.”* However, Jenkins asserts there is “a growing conservative movement on campus,” which one might imagine would help overcome the public humiliation of being openly conservative.
*(As an aside, it has been noted that college graduates earn more money than “the poorly educated” and that the wealth gap is actually what is driving the divide in how college educated versus non-college graduates vote, more so than the actual education itself. While that is somewhat counter-intuitive–tax the wealthy is a Democrat tenet that often drives the wealthiest and business owners to vote Republican–it does make sense when you consider that Trump has managed to appeal to poorer Americans as a populist who will restore the middle class with a 1960s version of America involving factory jobs.)
Jenkins seems to further muddle the message by asserting that “college student turnout in this election will be less than expected.” The poll itself seems to predict there will be a 92% voter turnout from this demographic. That does sound astonishingly high. The IHE article even notes that in 2020 the turnout for college students who were registered voters was a record high of 66%. It’s not surprising that people choosing to respond to a political survey are more likely to actually vote and those who will not vote did not bother responding. So I am left to wonder what Jenkins means by the “expected” college student turnout. Is it the obviously overstated 92% implied by the poll? Is it the 66% from the past election? Is it some other number from some other source that is unidentified for the reader? Whatever it is, I am amused by the notion that one can say it will be “less than expected” because, obviously, if Jenkins expects it to be a certain amount, he cannot expect it to be less than he expects it to be. In other words, him expecting an amount *is* the expected amount. Of course, I understand he means it will be less than others expect it to be, but there are no “others” identified, nor their expectations.
In any event, he explains his expecting a less than expected turnout by saying: “Between a growing conservative movement on campus and the anti-Israel faction that views the Democrats as part of the problem, I just don’t see that much enthusiasm for Harris among college kids.” In regards to the first reason, I am struggling to understand how this is an argument that students will not vote, when it in fact sounds like a reason students will vote for Trump. And yet, Jenkins did not question the polling that roughly 60% of college students would support Harris. In fact, when he likened it to other polling numbers (in which he dismissively referred to single women as “childless cat ladies” and engaged in the kind of divisive rhetoric that inflames the political discourse and furthers the deterioration of compromise or any real kind of unity among Americans as a population), what he said was, “Well, duh. All of this is already baked in.” (Also, it should be noted he cited that never-married women–I’m assuming this is the demographic he meant although he said “childless cat ladies” which is not an actual polling demographic so I can’t be sure–“are voting for Harris 70-30.” Similar to his remarks on college students voting for Harris 60-40, his way of referencing the voting numbers is confusing because it seems to imply that any non-Harris vote automatically goes to the other party. The Pew Research Center data from 2023 states that never-married women identify as Democrat versus Republican by a margin of 48 points, 72% to 24%. To round from 24 up to 30 is more forgivable than rounding from 19 to 40, as Jenkins did for the IHE poll, but it seems to show a pattern of Jenkins casually awarding all non-Harris votes to Trump. Perhaps that is not his meaning, but it is unclear. It is also possible that he is referencing a different poll rather than the 2023 Pew Research Center data.)
As for the second reason he provides that college students will not turn out to vote for Harris–“the anti-Israel faction that views the Democrats as part of the problem”–that is not really backed up by the IHE poll, and seems like a comment that is just more based on desire (a.k.a., “wishcasting”). The poll lists the Israel-Hamas war as the 11th most cited issue that is driving voting decisions among respondents with 11% of respondents selecting it as one of their top 3 issues. Interestingly, 11% is close to the total of those intending not to vote (8%) and those voting for “other” (2%). Perhaps it is already, as Jenkins would say, “baked in.”
I truly wonder for what reason the thoughts and musings of Rob Jenkins were even included. He is introduced in the same way one might include a subject matter expert. However, in this article (or blog post) he is credentialed as an associate professor of English. English! A very fine discipline. However, it is not political science or statistics.
Lastly, I would like to address the final statement made in the comment by Dr. Ed.
“Abortion, Carbon Dioxide, and Social Justice are female issues.”
Using the IHE polling, issues selected as a top 3 issue by gender:
Reproductive rights: 59% of women; 22% of men
One point for Dr. Ed. (Total=1)
Environmental issues: 15% of women; 27% of men
Minus one point for Dr. Ed. (Total=0)
The social justice one is a little harder to put in a box. But since I am doing the scoring here, I get to decide for this exercise.
Immigration: 21% of women; 25% of men
Minus one point for Dr. Ed. (Total= -1)
LGBTQIA+ issues: 15% of women; 14% of men
That’s way to close to call it a “female issue.” Minus one point for Dr. Ed. (Total= -2)
Racial Justice and Civil Rights: 23% of women, 9% of men
I must admit, I’m surprised about how wide the margin is here. One point for Dr. Ed. (Total= -1)
And lastly, the only issue Dr. Ed defines as an issue for “MEN”: expensive dates and pocketbook issues.
The economy/cost of living: 50% of women; 59% of men
My, my. 50% of women? Just as I was surprised by only 9% of men selecting Racial Justice and Civil Rights, I would wager that Dr. Ed would not have guessed fully half of the women were worried about the economy and cost of living. Then again, he probably didn’t account for the fact that these are the childless cat ladies who are not relying on their breadwinning husbands to bring home the bacon while they go out and spend their better half’s hard-earned paychecks on frivolous shopping without regard for credit card interest rates. Nope, these are the women earning college degrees who also noted (in numbers equal to men) their concerns about student loan/debt reform.
However, 59% does seem like quite a bit more than 50%. And though, like Rob Jenkins, I am not a statistician, and therefore do not truly know what constitutes as statistically significant, I think a 9 point difference seems like enough to count this, ever so slightly, as a “man” issue. Plus, I’m feeling generous.
One point for Dr. Ed. (Total= 0)
Zero points! Well done, Dr. Ed. Or we could look at it as 3 out of 6 for 50%. Or if we try to combine all the social justice issues into one (as you did), we first have to decide if you won or lost that one. We could say you were 1 for 3 on those, which is a loss. Or we could add up all the percentages across the three and figure (thanks primarily to the racial justice/civil rights one) that it is a majority female issue, which is a win.
With it as a loss, you are 2 and 2. With it as a win you are 3 and 1. So we could say you are as high as 75%, which is really good! Only one wrong (environmental issues).
Not pictured in the above scoring: selections from nonbinary respondents, since you did not include them in your analysis of who has what issues.
First, “And lastly, the only issue Dr. Ed defines as an issue for “MEN”: expensive dates and pocketbook issues.
The economy/cost of living: 50% of women; 59% of men”
Cows and cats are both mammals, except that I only have one in my freezer.
What you cutely do is comingle married women and single women, and I believe also comingle age groups. In a discussion of COLLEGE STUDENTS, I was looking at the data for the unmarried 18-25 cohort because that’s generally the “college student” demographic.
Surveys are showing that cost of dating (a male expense) to be a major issue, along with cost of living, but along two specific lines, cost of housing and cost of driving. These are more young male expenses, the latter two status symbols in a way that physical appearance is for women.
Now you throw married women into this, particularly older married women and it’s like comingling cows and cats in estimates of meat production. Married women have long dealt with pocketbook issues more than single women.
Second, “…as Dr. Ed notes in his comment, conservatives (such as himself) are afraid to publicly acknowledge their own political views for fear of negative judgment from the majority.”
It’s prudence, not fear — and it’s a whole lot more than mere negative judgment. It’s everything from physical assault to economic retaliation. There are a lot of petty left-wing bureaucrats out there, and no shortage of pathological left wing nuts.
I guess it’s kinda like being gay 60 years ago — it was not prudent for one to publicly proclaim ones homosexuality back then, and it it equally not prudent to proclaim ones support for Trump today. I can nonchalantly dismiss the closeted alphabet people — but they often have very good reasons to be in the closet.
For an objective viewpoint, look at what college students were saying last spring about the Team Hamas Trespasses — carefully nuance statements about people on both sides having strong opinions and such rather than “I wish they’s shut the f*** up so I can study for finals.”
Third, “As an aside, it has been noted that college graduates earn more money than “the poorly educated” “
That also was true 60 years ago — it isn’t anymore.
Electricians earn six figure salaries while college graduates work for minimum wage at Starbucks. The statistics on “lifetime earnings” are based on those who are now retired — those who graduated from college in decades past. The lifetime earnings of the 2024 graduate who just entered the workforce last spring won’t be known until 2070 or so.
But there is already enough data to show that the generic “college degree” doesn’t pay anymore, with a lot of employers no longer requiring a degree to apply.
And as to nonbinary respondents, polling generally ignores the mentally ill as being statistical outliers.
There are three things here.
First, college students can *only* vote in their college state if they declare it to be their legal residence. That means changing driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations to that state, and filing both Federal (and if appropriate) State income taxes as a resident of that state — this means that they must file in their “home” state as non-residents.
New Hampshire was pursuing this with college students from Massachusetts after the 2020 election, requiring them to obtain a NH license.
Second, being a conservative today is like being gay 60 years ago — there is the Bradley Effect writ large. Even I would state that I was intending to vote for Harris if some unknown stranger asked me.
And the third thing which is implied here but not stated — it is college WOMEN voting for Harris — college MEN are noticing how much more expensive dating is and are breaking for Trump on a strict pocketbook issue. Abortion, Carbon Dioxide, and Social Justice are female issues.