A West Chester professor and her class polled students statewide about the election. Here's what they found.

Nearly 95% of the 1,048 respondents said they will probably or certainly vote or already have voted, up from 89% in 2022, and 86% in 2020. While Pyott was encouraged by the record enthusiasm, she said she thinks students interested in the election were the ones most likely to take the poll, so results could be skewed. “We ran into the same issue that a lot of pollsters are running into, and it’s this concept of propensity,” she said. “The people who are opting in to your survey are the people who are enthusiastic.”

Sixty percent of respondents favored Vice President Kamala Harris, while 33% said they would vote for Trump. In 2020, the split was exactly the same amount of percentage points, with 58% favoring Biden and 31% Trump, Pyott said.

When those who were undecided were pushed to make a choice, that raised Harris’ share to 62%, but Trump stayed at 33%, Pyott said. “He doesn’t pick up any of those undecideds,” she said.

In the class’ 2020 poll, Biden led Trump in all regions of the state, including central Pennsylvania, where he was ahead by a point; this time, Trump leads Harris only in the central region, by 2 points.

For the first time, the survey asked students if they had confidence in the integrity of the election outcome; 80% overall said they were somewhat or very confident. But Pyott said she is concerned that 36% of students who identified as registered Republican said they were not too confident and another 8% not confident at all. “That Republican message of not trusting the integrity of our elections is definitely getting through to the younger demographic in Pennsylvania,” she said.



https://www.inquirer.com/education/west-chester-university-student-election-poll-20241025.html