NRHS Politics, by the Numbers

Ben Feinblum

From October 26th to October 29th, 251 NRHS students responded to the Huguenot Herald’s Election 2020 Survey. Answers were received via an anonymous Google Form, which was circulated by teachers, staff and other students, approximately reaching between 800 and 1200 students. Although the results may not be statistically reliable, we nevertheless believe that they provide valuable data on the expressions and ideologies of NRHS students. The publishing of this survey may contain outdated information, both because the winner of the 2020 Presidential Election was not known at the completion of this article and because public opinion and approval rates change on a daily basis. The Herald thanks those who have responded, and hopes those who declined will respond in the future, as the more responses received, the more diverse, accurate, and beneficial the results are. This survey was conducted with minimal bias, and therefore the results should be viewed as such. Ben Feinblum has not included his personal beliefs in survey results and has not selectively portrayed or presented the results in an effort to endorse either Donald Trump or Joe Biden or the Democratic and Republican Parties. If there are any inconsistencies, requests for exact spreadsheet data, or any requests for additional, unpublished data, please reach out to feinblumbe2023@nredlearn.org 

Of the 251 responses, the most common response was of a white cisgender female, living with two parents and one sibling, who has never used drugs and is currently in 10th grade. Like her, most respondents had two parents, one sibling or two siblings, and have not used drugs. 

The following questions asked respondents to indicate on a scale from 1-9 how much they agreed or disagreed with the statement given, with “1” being strongly disagree, and “9” being strongly agree.

Of the 251 responses, the most common response was of a white cisgender female, living with two parents and one sibling, who has never used drugs and is currently in 10th grade. Like her, most respondents had two parents, one sibling or two siblings, and have not used drugs. 

Influence of Others

The following questions asked respondents to indicate on a scale from 1-5 how much they agreed or disagreed with the statement given, with “1” being strongly disagree, and “5” being strongly agree.

Most people felt that they shared political views with the rest of their family. Despite agreeing with their family, only 33% of people felt that their family has affected their political views, even though their families are the political influence children are most exposed to. This same trend can also be observed in relationships with friends, as 55.8% of respondents felt that their friends held similar political views, despite only 10.4% saying their friends have affected their political views. Students seem to feel they have developed their political views very independently, despite heavily agreeing with those around them. The data shows that despite many students feeling they are sounded by like-minded people, they don’t think they have been influenced by their friends or family.

The one area of influence (or lack of) has been from teachers, where a large number of students were unable to say whether or not teachers held similar political views to their own. In the chart below, students were nearly down the middle in regard to what teachers expressed, and therefore 77% of students feel that teachers affected their political beliefs. This is likely because teachers are instructed to hide their personal and therefore political views from students. It appears that many teachers have accomplished this, though there are still some teachers who make no effort to conceal their views, with the use of bumper stickers on their desk, or by making it clear to students in everyday lessons. 

Knowledge Baseline

For decades, literacy tests were used as a way to ensure that only educated and informed people could vote. However, they were almost immediately made into a racist device, as they largely prevented minorities from voting. This was because whites could often vote without passing, and the questions themselves were often confusing or deceiving. Other methods of voter questioning have included Photo ID laws, which critics say favor white voters. However, researchers from Stanford, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, found the study that originally made the accusations to be improperly conducted (by UC San Diego, Michigan State University and Bucknell University), and therefore, they felt that voter ID laws did not affect racial turnout in the election. Of students questioned, less than 20% knew you could vote without photo identification in NY.

Questions regarding specific people or positions were widely answered correctly, except for a question about Supreme court justices, which only 71% got it right. Other questions that had low knowledge rates were about when presidents take office (January 20th, correctly answered by 65%), whether Donald Trump was impeached (yes, he was, answered correctly by 64%) and whether qualified immunity helps to hold police officers accountable (no, it protects officers from being held responsible for actions that have not been declared to be illegal or unconstitutional, answered correctly by 24.3%). The qualified immunity question was also the most unknown answer, with nearly 60% of students saying “I don’t know.”

Overall, only 17 students or 7% managed to answer all of the knowledge baseline questions, meaning that a massive majority of students could not answer basic questions regarding who Mike Pence is, and about Donald Trump’s impeachment. Of the students that got everything correct, 82% had two parents, 45% were white (compared to 40% of respondents) and nearly 30% said they had used drugs or drank alcohol (compared to 21% of students). Despite the survey consisting of 6% Republicans and 59% Democrat, students who got all questions correct were 82% democrat and 6% republican, indicating that the school’s liberal students were better versed in present-day politics than their conservative classmates.

Political Baseline

A large majority of students (59%) generally felt that they were democratic leaning, and when broken down into individual subjects, this was reflected in all areas except marijuana legalization. It saw the only drop below 50%, making it the least agreed-upon issue, and the most unknown issue, as nearly a third of respondents answered: “Other/I don’t know.” Despite minute differences, people typically stuck with their party for all topics, with only a handful of students answering ‘Democrat’ for one topic and ‘Republican’ for another.

Of students who said they are generally ‘Republican’, 71% were male, despite only representing 43% of respondents. Furthermore, 50% were white, while whites made up less than 40% of the respondents. 

The following questions asked respondents to indicate on a scale from 1-9 how much they agreed or disagreed with the statement given, with “1” being strongly disagree, and “9” being strongly agree. 

Donald Trump

The following graphs asked students to give an approval rate on specific topics under the Trump administration.The dislike of President Donald Trump is very clear, as he only managed to gain more than 14% of student’s approval (choices “6”, “7”, “8” and “9”) on one question (foreign affairs), and he had 10% support for his handling of LGBT rights. Most other topics had approval ratings of around 8% support, with every single topic having the “1” column taking the majority of responses, reflecting the most dissatisfaction of students. Overall, students are not approving of Donald Trump, at some points passing him well under a 10% approval rating.

Personal Beliefs

In this section, students responded how much they agree with each statement on a scale of 1-9. The purpose was to see if people really disliked Donald Trump’s ideas, or if they only disliked them because Donald Trump was the leader.

However, when it came to expressing personal beliefs, this happened very little, suggesting that not only did people not like Donald Trump’s policies, they disliked them for what they did, not because they were Donald Trump’s. 

On the whole, the personal belief data supported the theme that students in NRHS truly lean democratic, not just in identification, but also in practice, as evidenced by the significant democratic bias in the results. A vast majority of students identified themselves as democrats, and the personal beliefs of those students backed up their self-identification, especially in the LGBT question, as a majority of students disapproved of Donald Trump in this area, and then also staunchly opposed LGBT discrimination. Abortion was also a topic that leaned extremely Democratic, with only 9.2% of people opposed to it legal status.

The only exception was in voter ID laws, where a massive majority felt that voters should have to show photo ID, an idea opposed by most democratic leaders. 

For many of the questions, people were often very opinionated (“1” and “9”), or they were very down the middle (“5”). 

The two questions that had the most variation in responses or the least knowledge were the first US Border defense question and the DC statehood question. 

Remainder of responses: 

Election 2020 Results

While a massive majority of students surveyed would vote for Joe Biden, and a massive majority also feel he would win, the difference between Trump supporters and those who think Trump will win is nearly triple. This suggests that as much as people like Biden, a decent number feel that their views are different then the rest of the US, and therefore Trump would pull out ahead.