HamPoll Pre-Election Survey Proves Most Students are White, Rich and From the Northeast

By HamPoll Staff

Indeed, 89% of the 301 respondents described themselves as white, 40% reported family incomes of above $150,000 (with only 10% below $40,000) and 79% were from the Northeast. While this somewhat humorous result may not be surprising, this superficially homogeneous group expressed diverse and often surprising opinions.

The 301 respondents identified themselves as 62% Democratic and 20% Republican (the remaining 18% comprised Green, Libertarian, Independent and all other parties) . Atheists and agnostics made up 29%, Protestants 24% and Catholics 23%. 42% of respondents identified themselves as social science majors, revealing a slight bias in the sample base. Humanities students were second most interested, totaling 25% of the respondents. Students of the arts, foreign languages and mathematics and computer science totaled only 15% in comparison.

Two questions in particular revealed some of the most interesting results. The first asked students to identify how important they perceived a number of current issues to be. These issues, which included taxation, the state of the economy, social issues, racial equality, the war, etc., were all considered either “somewhat important” or “very important” by the majority of students. The two issues that the most students judged as “not important” the most often were immigration and social issues such as stem cell research and abortion. Unsurprisingly, Republicans found taxation to be more important than did Democrats, and Democrats favored social issues and the environment. That Republicans also felt more concerned about the economy is out of agreement with nationwide trends; this can perhaps be explained by the disproportionate amount of wealthy students here at Hamilton.

The last question asked respondents to choose which out of several countries they found most dangerous for global security. Not surprisingly, 45% of students chose North Korea. What interested the staff was the second most popular choice, the United States; this choice, at 26% of the answer total, ranked higher than Iran at 20%. Upon further analysis, it was discovered that while only 5% of those who voted for Bush in 2004 feared the U.S., a whopping 30% of Kerry voters held this view. Apparently Bush’s controversial handling of the various problems in the Middle East has had a drastic effect on the way many Americans perceive their country.