If students could decide the presidential election who would be the next commander in chief? According to a Scholastic Presidential Election Poll an overwhelming majority of students from grades 1 to 12 choose Sen. Barack Obama. The Democratic presidential nominee beat out Sen. John McCain 57% to 39%. Given most if not all of the students who participated in the poll are inelligible to vote due to their age, the significance of the poll may seem, well, insignificant. On the contrary, these intuitive Scholastic pollsters have mirrored election results all but twice since its inception in 1940; In 1948, kids voted for Thomas E. Dewey over Harry S. Truman. In 1960, more students voted for Richard M. Nixon than for John F. Kennedy.
Almost 250,000 kids voted by paper ballot or on the Scholastic Web site. The survey was open to kids from grades 1 to 12 in Scholastic News and Junior Scholastic magazines. Obama came out victorious in five out of eight key swing states including Florida (55%) and Ohio (51%). McCain won the remaining three states; Colorado (61%), Indiana (51%) and Missouri (48%).
Given that the students were write about all but two elections since 1948, and barring the Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers write-ins, this poll may actually hold some validity.
Renita Burns is the editorial assistant at BlackEnterprise.com