Rubio Dominates Union Straw Poll
Posted Feb 29, 2016
In the Union Straw Poll, Marco Rubio was the clear favorite among Union community members winning 57% of the vote while Ben Carson came in a distant second with 20% of the vote. The remainder of the candidates were in single digits (Cruz 9%, Sanders 6%, Clinton and Kasich 3%). Donald Trump, who leads national polls among GOP voters, came in dead last with 2% support. Among Democrats, Bernie Sanders outpolled Hillary Clinton 2 to 1.
Rubio dominated all the categories tested winning 67% of Republicans, 39% of Independents, 60% of Very Conservative voters, 66% of Conservative voters, 48% of moderates, 52% of females, and 61% of males. His victory was aided by the fact that respondents rated him most highly among honest and trustworthy (47%), tells it like it is (27%), most electable (76%), and shared my values (63%). He tied with Bernie Sanders for caring about people like me (27%) and came in second for experience (28%).
Rubio’s win should probably not be that surprising. Union is a very Republican (73% are GOP) and conservative (66% conservative) campus. Moreover, Rubio seems to poll best among college educated Republicans. With most of Union’s students coming from white collar families and the students themselves going to college and thus interested in white collar jobs, Rubio’s victory is not surprising, though the margin is.
Other than Rubio, Ben Carson did best winning 19% of Republicans, 25% of Independents, 16% of very conservatives, 20% of conservatives, 22% of moderates, and 20% of males and females. His most highest rated quality is being “honest and trustworthy” which is not surprising considering his temperament and the avowed reasons he has for running.
Ted Cruz would have to be the most disappointed among the Republican candidates. Cruz tailored made his strategy to appeal to evangelicals and more conservative voters. Yet, he garnered only 10% of Republican support and 16% of very conservatives. Moreover, only 10% of Union community members claimed to be very conservative. Whether the attacks against Cruz as a liar or Rubio being seen as someone best positioned to stop Trump, Cruz’s inability to do well among Union students is not a good omen for his campaign. On the bright side, he did have the highest number of those who chose the experienced as the reason for supporting him. However due to his outsider status, you would assume they meant his lack of political experience.
Among Democrats, Bernie Sanders easily topped Clinton, though only 9% of Union community members chose a Democrat as an option. Sanders beat Clinton among Democrats (54%-31%), liberals (54%-15%), and very liberals (50%-25%). What should be most disturbing to Clinton is that females preferred Sanders over Clinton by over a 2 to 1 margin. Her highest marks among reasons that candidates supported her were in experience (17% overall). She has no one rate her honesty and trustworthiness as her most important quality which is not surprising considering the scandals that she has been involved in. Bernie got 27% of those who thought he cares about people like me while Bernie and Hillary tied for telling it like it is.
The fact that Sanders did better than Clinton at Union is somewhat surprising. Union is a more conservative campus and most of our students come from more conservative environments so one would have thought Clinton would perform better. Yet since Sanders tends to do well among college educated white liberals, his support should not be too surprising.
The Department of Political Science sponsored the Union Straw Poll and it was conducted Feb. 23-25th outside Cobo/The Brew from 11am-1pm each day to educate students and encourage participation in the presidential primaries. Participants were primarily students but faculty, staff, and campus visitors were allowed to participate. Since the Straw Poll allows anyone to participate, the poll is not a random poll and is not representative enough to generalize to the large Union population. However, it does present interesting insights into how Union community members view the election.
