Political handicappers take note: If you need a fresh, new demographic to help predict the outcome of the Nov. 4 presidential election, ask non-voters younger than 18.It turns out students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade have been on the right side of history in 15 of the past 17 presidential elections.This year, they're going with Obama.
In a large straw poll taken every four years, the readers of Scholastic magazines spent weeks filling in presidential ballots, snipping them out and turning them in.Today the results are official:
• 57% chose Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.
• 39% chose Republican Sen. John McCain.
The student voters — about 250,000 this year — have an 88% prediction rate. Only twice since 1940 have their results been at odds with the nation's: in 1948, when Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey, and in 1960, when John F. Kennedy beat Richard Nixon. (To students' credit, their balloting closed before the televised Nixon-Kennedy debates that historians consider a game-changer.)
Complete story in USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-10-14-obama-scholastic-poll_N.htm
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