On Wednesday, Oct. 30, The Current conducted a poll exclusively for Brookdale students regarding the 2024 presidential election. The poll was a five-question Microsoft form, the last question asking for a written response.
The questions were:
Are you eligible to vote in the 2024 election?
Yes/No
Do you plan to vote?
Yes/No
Who do you plan to vote for?
Donald Trump/Kamala Harris/Third Party (Independent)/Prefer not to say
Below are the top five issues that nationwide voters say are most important to them when considering a presidential candidate’s position, according to a GALLUP1 poll. Please rank them in importance from top to bottom, with the top issue being the most important to you and the bottom issue being the least important.
Types of Supreme Court justices candidate would pick/Terrorism and national security/
Democracy in the U.S./The Economy/Immigration
Please write why you will be voting for this presidential candidate. Why not any other candidate? Why did you rank the issues in the above question in the way you did? Are there any other issues that are influencing your choice for president? [STUDENT RESPONSE]
Students who worked directly on the poll were not permitted to vote. Members of The Current saw this poll as important considering how polarized the country has been during the election season. In the 2020 election, Monmouth County counted 378,151 ballots for president, and Donald J. Trump won by 10,517 votes in the county. That’s 50.7 percent compared to Joe Biden’s 47.9 percent.
Aside from how close Monmouth County has been in previous elections and how close this election is nationally, major changes in policy and law across the nation have put extreme pressure on voters. Ballot measures on abortion, gun control, prison reform and the legalization of marijuana will be voted on by millions of Americans. In New Jersey, voters must also decide who will take one of New Jersey’s U.S. Senate seats. Former Senator Bob Menendez resigned from this post following a corruption conviction during the summer.
Although this is an unscientific poll, the input from Brookdale students willing to share their views is important. Even though the results of the poll will not be an accurate indication of how all of Monmouth County will vote, Brookdale is a politically diverse institution. The varying views of the student body will show what some younger voters will be thinking about in this year’s election booth.
The Current’s poll closed at 8 p.m. last Wednesday night after 84 votes were cast. Kamala Harris captured 53 percent of the vote, compared with Donald Trump’s 31 percent. In addition, 11 percent said they would prefer not to say, and 5 percent said they were voting for a third-party candidate.
The Brookdale results are consistent with the fact that many college students across America tend to support more progressive policies. Considering this, the results are also consistent with the fact that Monmouth County is a Republican-leaning county.
The results showed that 33 percent of students said the economy was most important to them, followed by democracy at 30 percent, terrorism and national security garnered 13 percent of the vote, with the types of Supreme Court justices each candidate would pick and national security and immigration each taking 12 percent.
On Wednesday, Oct. 30, The Current held a student president election poll, asking students to submit their anonymous vote via an online form. The promotion of the event was planned ahead of time. The poll was promoted via canvassing on campus. From the hours of 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., the polls were open for students to cast their votes. Students were addressed directly and were prompted to participate, in addition to the option of scanning a QR code on a hung flyer to submit their vote. The Current members worked in shifts on the Lincroft campus, asking students to participate in the poll.
While interacting with students a few similar questions were asked, “Do I have to include my name?”, “Will my information be private?” and “Is this for the state/government?” Overall, the majority were enthusiastic to participate in the poll. Multiple participants said, “This is cool!” and “I love that you all are doing this.” The participants were all aware that the school has a newspaper and were informed to checkout bcccurrent.com on Tuesday, Nov. 5, for results about the poll. While canvassing, a few students declined to participate in the poll, on average about 1 in 10 declined to participate in the student presidential poll.
After polls are conducted, pollsters typically analyze what flaws may have taken place with the method of the poll or its execution. The larger the poll, the more room for flaws. It’s important for pollsters to understand the flaws in their surveys to ensure they do not make the same mistakes and to ensure that they get more accurate results in the future.
The first flaw for The Current’s poll was access. The poll used Microsoft forms, which made it easy to restrict just those with a Brookdale email to take it. However, this means that Brookdale staff (mainly professors and administrative personnel) could have taken the poll even though this was advertised as a students-only survey. The way to solve this was to invite literally every student email to take the survey.
A late promotion of the poll could also be seen as a flaw. Flyers for the poll were only put up a few days before it was to take place. There were also plans to reserve the vendor table in Larrison Hall on Oct. 30, but that did not take fruition. In the future, flyers for a Brookdale poll should be put up on campus at least 2 weeks before it’s conducted, a table either at Larrison Hall or the Student Life Center should be reserved, and a more expansive social media campaign should take place.
A survey done by the Fair Election Center3 in 2022 of college students found out that 59 percent of participants were Democrats. Of The Current’s participants, 88 percent were aged 18 – 25, and culturally speaking, younger people have more progressive views. The Democratic party has modeled itself as the more progressive of the two political parties in the United States, so the Democratic party has received the majority vote of the youth population in the last few presidential elections.
Last is the subject of abortion. Question #4 asked survey takers to rank the personal importance of 5 issues that a GALLUP poll found extremely important among another pool of survey takers. Abortion was one issue they were asked to measure in importance to them. It was placed 9th out of 22 issues in terms of extreme importance to the GALLUP survey takers.
But in The Current’s poll, nearly a dozen of the 68 written student responses either mention abortion, women’s rights, Roe v. Wade, or reproductive rights. Despite the fact that abortion was not mentioned in The Current’s poll, students have made it clear that the issue is still important to them in deciding who they will be voting for president.
The 16th person to answer the poll started their written poll with, “I will be voting for Kamala; the biggest reason for me to is due to having abortion rights.” Respondents 23 and 24 stated a surprise that abortion or reproductive rights weren’t on the poll, as respondent 24 puts it: “Reproductive rights and bodily autonomy should be included in the list.”
Respondent 18 had one of the more well-constructed arguments for their vote. They discussed in their statement of the Roe v. Wade overturn that it was: “not an attack on women but just a legal decision of what should be the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court vs that of the states’ courts.”
Ballot measures in states such as Florida and Arizona will put the power in voters’ hands on whether abortion rights will be enshrined in their state’s constitution. Another survey by The Pew Research Center found that 51 percent of registered voters consider abortion as a very important issue for their votes for president. In the future, several surveys by various organizations should be looked over before The Current posts any question for students to rank issues in order of importance.
Sources:
Monmouth County Records
https://www.nj.gov/state/elections/assets/pdf/election-results/2020/2020-official-general-results-president-monmouth.pdf
GALLUP Poll
https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-2024-presidential-vote.aspx
Fair Election Center Survey Results
Pew Research Center Survey
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-the-2024-election/
