Barack Obama, with 57 percent, over John McCain’s 39 percent. That’s the result of the Scholastic Presidential Election Poll, announced last month.
Students participating in the poll have been right on all but two occasions since 1940. They voted for Thomas E. Dewey in the close 1948 election won by Harry S. Truman, and for Richard Nixon in his loss to John F. Kennedy in 1960.
For all the talk about Obama being a rock star of sorts, owing to his appeal with America’s youth, some of the student voters couldn’t resist writing in their own favorites. Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers were among the write-ins, who accounted for 4 percent of the vote. Hillary Clinton also garnered many of those write-in votes.
Scholastic Kid Reporter Lya Ferreya said the mock election is important because it “gives kids a voice.”
Another national poll of students also had Obama winning, but by a much larger margin. In the National Student/Parent Mock Election the Obama/Biden ticket was leading with 64 percent of the vote as of noon today. The Democratic ticket was leading as well in every state except Hawaii, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. In the Scholastic poll, Obama won many of the battleground states, including Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
