Political Science

Survey: College Students Engaged in 2004 Vote

The 2004 election featured a historically high youth voter turnout, and college students led the way with 77 percent going to the polls.

That’s according to the first national postelection survey of college students designed by Richard Niemi, the Don Alonzo Watson Professor of Political Science at Rochester, and Michael Hanmer, a professor at Georgetown University.

The poll of 1,200 college students found that they chose John Kerry over George Bush by 55 to 41 percent, but didn’t find a big shift in party identification, as the same percentage of college students as all voters, 37 percent, called themselves Democrats. Kerry won the college vote because Independent college students preferred him by 62 to 27 percent.

The survey was conducted by John Della Volpe, whose firm Schneiders/Della Volpe/Schulman questioned students the week after the election. It’s among only a few studies of college students that include students living both on and off campus. The funding was provided by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE).

Among the survey’s findings:

High turnout. Seventy-seven percent of the college students surveyed said they voted. According to CIRCLE’s analysis of national exit poll data and vote tallies, about 42 percent of all 18- to 24-year-olds voted, up from 36.5 percent in 2000, and 52 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted, up from 42 percent four years ago.

Majors matter. While a majority of college students voted for Kerry, his support varied by field of study. Sixty-six percent of arts and humanities majors and 63 percent of social science majors voted for Kerry. Bush had the strongest support among students of education (51 percent), the sciences (46 percent), and business (46 percent).

Heavy mobilization. About 47 percent of all students—and 57 percent of those who attended college in a “battleground” state—said they were contacted by a political party during the campaign.

Students participated. Sixty-two percent said that they had encouraged or helped someone else to vote.

Students listened. More than 85 percent said they followed the presidential election very or somewhat closely. Nearly three-quarters said they talked about politics at least once a week

Few poll problems. In general, college students said they had little difficulty voting. Nearly 90 percent said they found it “very easy” or “fairly easy” both to obtain and to cast an absentee ballot. Fewer than one in 25 said they tried to register but were unable to.

“Our results suggest that students overall had remarkably few problems,” says Niemi. “Of course, even a few problems are more than one would like. Nonetheless, the image of large numbers of students being prevented from voting (by the difficulties encountered or in reality) appears to be a gross exaggeration.”

Hometown voting. Of those registered, two-thirds were registered in their hometown. Though turnout was high overall, turnout among those who registered at home and did not change their place of registration was more than 7 percentage points lower than turnout among those who registered for the first time at their school address and those who switched their registration from their home address to their school address.

Moral issues. College students were divided, but more (26 percent) cited “moral values issues, such as gay marriage and abortion,” than any other issue. College students who were concerned about moral issues preferred Bush over Kerry by 60 percent to 37 percent.

Iraq (22 percent), the economy (18 percent), and terrorism (15 percent) followed as the next most important issues for college students.

Phone interviews were conducted with 1,200 college students, including those living on campus, off campus, and at home. Interviews were conducted between November 9 and 19. The margin of error was ±2.8 percent at the 95 percent confidence interval but was higher for subgroups.

—Sharon Dickman