The actual election is less than three weeks away from now, but we do have a winner in this year's Scholastic election among our nation's students. Every four years since the beginning of FDR's third term, kids from across the nation vote in the mock election. All except for two of them the future voters cast their ballots just as the country would shortly thereafter. In 2008, the results weren't even close.
From USA Today:
That my friends is a blowout victory. Kids may not have much experience but they are very well in tune with Presidential politics with non-stop coverage nearly everywhere you go. And of course, this follows the trend in the electorate as well, with more likely voters supporting Obama over McCain. The ratio becomes more even as the age range goes up. All in all, it portends well for our country's future, like when the 14-17 year olds vote in the 2012 race.
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.)
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