www.brevard.edu/clarion
Volume 78, Issue 10 IVeb Edition SERVING BREVARD COLLEGE SINCE 1935
Nov. 2, 2012
BC poll shows tight race for president
National polls show a tantalizingly close
presidential race between Barack Obama and
Mitt Romney, and a Brevard College survey
conducted this week reveals a similarly tight
race—at least, among students.
Among students registered to vote who
responded to the Clarion’s survey, Mitt
Romney has a one-point advantage of 43
percent, compared to the president’s 42
percent—a difference of just two votes out
of the 206 responses to the question “Who
did or would you vote for” in this year’s
presidential election.
Romney held a similar slight advantage
among students who had voted early, either
by mail-in absentee ballots or by early one-
stop voting—again, a difference of just two
votes.
The closeness of the vote among students
is reflective of North Carolina’s status this
year, as in 2008, as a so-called “battleground”
state—one of the handful of states in which
polls are close enough that they could swing
the election one way or the other in the
all-important electoral college tally which
determines the actual winner of presidential
elections. Out of the 132 students registered
to vote in North Carolina who took the survey,
Obama holds just a two-vote advantage.
“It somewhat mirrors the general public,”
said Ralph Hamlett, associate professor
of political communication at the college.
National tracking polls since the first
presidential debate on Oct. 3 show that
the race between Obama and Romney has
narrowed to a virtual tie, with Romney even
holding a slight edge in several polls.
The biggest reason for the tie among
students at Brevard, however, can be seen
when the polling is broken down by the
students’ year at the college. First-year
students went overwhelmingly for Romney,
45 votes compared to just 33 for Obama,
whereas for seniors, the opposite was true—
seniors in the survey preferred Obama over
Romney 28-17, a difference of 11 votes.
For sophomores and juniors answering
the survey, the difference in each case was a
single vote in favor of Romney.
According to Hamlett, the disparity
between freshmen and seniors suggests
that younger students are not as politically
aware or engaged in the issues that other
polls and studies have shown matter greatly
to them—especially social issues such as
gay marriage, abortion rights, and women’s
issues in general. Several students mentioned
these issues specifically as key factors in their
presidential choices—and in every instance,
students who raised them said they preferred
Obama.
“I think basic human rights trump taxes,”
one student, a senior, wrote on the survey
form.
Also important to respondents were
education, health care, and the economy
and taxes, each of which ranked on average
higher than 4 on a scale of 1-5 on matters
significant to voters in this year’s election.
Foreign policy—including terrorism and the
war in Afghanistan—was ranked at 3.96,
followed by environmental concerns at 3.86
and immigration ranking lowest at 3.29.
Among Romney supporters, the key
write-in issue had to do with the size and
appropriate role of government. “Growing the
government does not produce the right kind of
jobs,” one person wrote on the survey.
Faculty and staff were also invited to
take the survey, and their responses were a
stark contrast to those by students—among
Brevard College employees, Obama took a
commanding lead of 82 percent to Romney’s
18 percent.
When all results, from students, staff and
faculty at the college, are averaged together,
Barack Obama had a double-digit lead of
51 percent to 38 percent for Mitt Romney.
“Other” took 3 percent of the vote, and 8
percent of respondents remain undecided.
The survey was conducted Monday through
Thursday of this week to students in BCE
classes and to faculty and staff via an
electronic form. All told. The Clarion
received 329 responses to the survey, of which
267 respondents—81 percent— identified
themselves as a registered voter. Among the
266 students who took the survey, 55 percent
are registered to vote in North Carolina
and another 24 percent are registered in
another state. Roughly one in five students
(21 percent) said they were not registered
to vote.
The poll’s margin of error is plus or
minus 3 percent, with a 95 percent standard
deviation.
BC students' choices for president
(Students registered to vote only)
Undecided,
Othe
Mitt
Romneyj
43%
A ”
‘ \
Barack
Obama,
42%
Barack Obama
Mitt Romney
Other
Undecided
Percentout of a total of 206 responses
from students identifying themselves as
registered voters.
More graphs can be found on page 7