Biden Takes the 2020 Mock Election in Landslide Victory
November 1, 2020
The results for the 2020 Mock Election are in! If the presidency of the United States was determined by WFS students, Joe Biden would win in a landslide. 88.2% of students, or 134 students overall, voted for Joe Biden. The runner up was Donald Trump with 9.2% of votes. Jo Jorgensen garnered 2% of votes and Howie Hawkins brought in 0.7%. Below I will analyze the results of the election including demographics and key issues. If you are interested in seeing this data in a more accessible format, please visit the site below:
https://sites.google.com/wilmingtonfriends.org/wac-2020-mock-election/home
Of the 279 students in Upper School, 152 (54.5%) voted. Seniors voted the most with 65% class participation and freshmen voted the least with 49% class participation. Numerous parties were represented, however a vast majority of students (61.8%) identified themselves as democratic voters while only 7.2% identified themselves as republican and 25% identified as independent.
With 88.2% of student votes, Joe Biden clearly won the 2020 Mock Election. Of those who voted for him, 69.4% identified as democratic while 30.6% of voters aligned with other parties. Overall, 33.6% of students voted against their party affiliation. These parties included republican and independent voters as well as green, libertarian, and other party members. This is in stark contrast to those who voted for the runner up, Donald Trump who only appealed to republican and independent voters, each encompassing 50% of his votes. Similarly, the gender breakdown of each candidate is telling. Whereas Biden appealed to a variety of genders, Trump appealed primarily to male voters who represented 71.4% of his supporters. Judging by the factors of party affiliation and gender identity, Joe Biden had a broader appeal within the WFS community.
The issues that students deemed “Most Important” were surprising to say the least. Though campus conversation would suggest that racial and ethinic inequality, the pandemic crisis, and the climate crisis would be the most important issues to voters, this was not the case. All three of those issues came in with around 20% of voters viewing them as their top 2 most important issues. Instead, gun rights, abortion, and socialism were found to be the most pressing issues for WFS students. For Biden voters, the issue of gun rights was deemed the most critical issue on the ballot for 2020 whereas abortion was seen as the most important for Trump supporters. Due to the limitations of the survey, it is impossible to say exactly whether students interpreted gun rights and abortion as issues that need to be protected or restricted, however it is fair to assume that students viewed these issues along party lines. Issues that were deemed least important by the student body were foreign policy and law and order.
Voters tended to be pessimistic about the future of the United States as it stands today with only 11.8% indicating that they were optimistic. The percent of Trump supporters who were optimistic about the United States as it stands today was greater than those of the Biden, Jorgensen, and Hawkins voters combined. As an indicator of the divisive political climate, only 4.6% of students indicated that they would be optimistic about the future of the United States should their candidate lose. Interestingly enough, 3% of Biden voters indicated they would be optimistic in this scenario compared to 21.4% of Trump supporters. This shows a lack of faith in the opposition to effectively run the nation. Higher amounts of Biden supporters were optimistic about the future of the nation should their candidate win compared to Trump supporters, who only 57.1%, a little over half of Trump supporters, indicated positivity should Trump remain in office. Then again, higher amounts of Biden supporters would be pessimistic if their candidate wins than Trump supporters, indicating that some students were voting against Trump rather than for Biden.
Ultimately, when viewing these results before the election, it is very important to remember that WFS is a very libral school. According to Gallup polling conducted in May 2020, 31% of Americans identify as Democrats, 25% identify as Republican, and 40% identify as Independent. While the results listed above are interesting to view in order to understand the makeup of our community, they are not representative of the entire nation. For more information on nationwide polling, please visit the site below:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
Conner Manning • Nov 2, 2020 at 11:18 am
Some incredibly interesting results from a heavily left-wing school. I’d love to see a breakdown of the votes alongside data about years spent at this school, just some food for thought. After all, a class called “Global Peace and Justice” can only be so indoctorizing, right?
Most of the data isn’t surprising aside from the 2% vote for Jo Jorgenson. The libertarian candidate has seldom gotten any publicity, and especially with the cut-throat pro-Biden attitude of many of the students, her getting any votes at all is surprising. The article at the end specified that many of the students claimed to be voting not for Biden because of his ideals, but rather they were voting against Trump for his. This brings into question why those kids wouldn’t vote for Jo, or at least do some research into her, a candidate who classicly has very altruistic ideals. 25% of the students identify as Independent but only 2% voted for one of the main independent candidates. This could be in part to the Democrat’s heavy “settle for Biden” and “a vote for anyone else is a vote for Trump” campaigns. I would also attribute this to the attitude of many of the students at the school, even though many cannot vote themselves. The aggressive neo-liberalism is quite interesting, but goes to show just how accepting the school is (even though people on social media like “Wilm speaks” don’t agree).
It’s no surprise that “Biden Takes the 2020 Mock Election in Landslide,” anyone who’s been at the school even a minimal amount of time could have predicted that. I think this mock election clearly shows the raging liberalism this school goes through, something that has been quietly talked about for years. For a school, so accepting of people who change their gender and identity, it sure isn’t as accepting as those who have a different political view than the majority. It’s ironic how climate change and racial equality were voted amongst the least important things, as that is something this school has relentlessly shoved onto students. But of course, that cannot be said out loud on campus, as the social ridicule that would follow would be intolerable.
It’s no wonder that the Young conservative club died out in the last few years, now no longer existing altogether. While not a republican myself, I feel sorry for those that are. In any political conversation, those republicans participating would probably be outnumbered drastically, to the point where they do not dare speak. It’s funny, the world affairs and debate club struggle to find people willing to debate pro-conservative ideals. But sadly this comment will fall on deaf ears, as the school rarely heeds any word from its students at all. The violent political climate on campus is just one of the many erroneous ways in the on-goings of the school. One could go on and on about them, ranging from phone use to wifi, arbitrary and sexist dress coding, miscommunication or lack thereof completely, and countless more.
But once again, sadly this comment will probably fall on deaf ears. Which may be for the better, as one risks getting a demerit for saying anything at all to the faculty of their ways. I think up next the school should take a political compass test, I’d bet a lot of money many of the students and even more of the staff would test positive for Authoritarian Left or Right, even if only marginally.
– Sic Semper Tyrannus
Edit: I originally wrote this attempting to be anonymous, but since the moderation of my comment apparently turned it down I guess that is out the window. Cheers.