By Dan Cox
College Pulse, Head of Research
Highlights
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s support surges, rising to second place with support from 23 percent of college students, trailing only Sen. Bernie Sanders with 28 percent
- Former Vice President Joe Biden has seen his support plummet among Democratic college students following the first Democratic debate. Only eight percent of Democratic students now support his candidacy, down from 17 percent before the debate
- Sen. Kamala Harris had a good debate. Although she only is supported among six percent of Democratic college students, 26 percent of students who watched the debate said the California Senator exceeded their expectations.
Two nights. Twenty candidates. The first Democratic debates are over. A new survey of 1,500 college students conducted within one hour after the second Democratic debate by Chegg/College Pulse finds that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is challenging Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic student vote, while other candidates are struggling to attract support.
Today’s article is part of the Chegg/College Pulse Student Election Tracker. Each week, Chegg–in partnership with College Pulse–is conducting a survey of 1,500 college students across the United States on the 2020 presidential election. To receive regular updates with the most important findings from the tracker and other student insights, sign up here. You can also receive updates by following @Chegg and @CollegeInsights on Twitter.
Regardless of who you may support in the upcoming 2020 presidential election, who would you most like to be the Democratic nominee for President? –– Candidates with ≤1% student support are not shown.
Support for Warren Surges on College Campuses
Sen. Elizabeth Warren turned in a strong debate performance that will undoubtedly help her continue her climb in the polls. On college campuses, with the exception of Sen. Bernie Sanders no candidate has more support among Democratic students. Currently, 23 percent of Democratic students say they would like to see Warren win the nomination. However, while both Biden and Sanders have seen their support weaken among college students in recent months, Warren has been on the rise since late April. Before announcing her plan to cancel student debt and eliminate tuition, only five percent of Democratic students said Warren was their preferred candidate. By early May, her support among Democratic students had jumped to 13 percent and continued to grow over the next couple months.
Notably, Warren maintains considerable support among LGBT students. Nearly one-third (32 percent) of LGBT students say they would prefer Warren to be the Democratic nominee followed by Sanders (28 percent) and Mayor Pete Buttigieg (9 percent).
Harris Impresses, but Lags among Students
Sen. Kamala Harris gave perhaps the most memorable performance of both evenings, but she still has not attracted the support of many Democratic students. Only six percent of students say that Harris is their preferred candidate at this stage in the campaign, which is nearly indistinguishable from her support in early spring (four percent). However, among students who watched or heard about the debates 26 percent said that Harris exceeded their expectations, far more than any other candidate. In contrast, only 17 percent of students reported that Buttigieg exceeded expectations and only eight percent said the same of Sanders. Nearly one-third (32 percent) of students who tuned in or heard about the debates said that Harris “won” the debate.
Regardless of who you may support in the upcoming 2020 presidential election, who would you most like to be the Democratic nominee for President?
Biden’s Bad Night
Former Vice President Joe Biden has been the putative front-runner since entering the Democratic primary. However, he has struggled to attract support of younger Democratic voters and this remains particularly true on college campuses. And his debate performance may have hurt him. Before the first debate, 17 percent Democratic students stated that Biden was their preferred candidate. After the debate, only eight percent of Democratic college students say that Biden is their first choice in the Democratic race. Biden’s support on college campuses has plummeted since March, when nearly one in four (24 percent) Democratic college students favored the former Vice President. Notably, only four percent of students who watched or heard about the debate said Biden was the winner.
Castro Emerges
Despite the fact that he only garners support of two percent of Democratic students, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro may have broken through. Nineteen percent of students who watched or heard about the debate said Castro exceeded their expectations while 10 percent say he won the debate.
The Campus Gender Divide
There is a stark gender divide on college campuses. Democratic female students are supporting Warren and Sanders at roughly equal rates (27 percent vs. 26 percent). However, Democratic male students prefer Sanders (27 percent) over Warren (17 percent) by a wide margin.
Regardless of who you may support in the upcoming 2020 presidential election, who would you most like to be the Democratic nominee for President?
Overall, 26 percent of college students reported that they watched or listened to the Democratic primary debates compared to 4.5 percent of the national population. Fourteen percent report that they did not watch or listen to them live, but heard or read the news accounts of them afterward. A majority (55 percent) of college students say they did not watch or hear anything about the debates. Democratic students were only slightly more likely to tune in. Thirty percent of Democratic students report having watched or listened to the debates while seventeen percent say they heard about them afterwards. There is a considerable gender gap among Democratic students in their interest in the debates. Thirty-six percent of male Democratic students report having watched the debates compared to only 26 percent of female Democratic students.’
About Chegg:
Chegg puts students first. As the leading student-first connected learning platform, Chegg strives to improve the overall return on investment in education by helping students learn more in less time and at a lower cost. Chegg is a publicly-held company based in Santa Clara, California and trades on the NYSE under the symbol CHGG. For more information, visit www.chegg.com.
About College Pulse:
College Pulse is an online survey and analytics company dedicated to understanding the attitudes, preferences, and behaviors of today’s college students. College Pulse offers custom data-driven marketing and research solutions, utilizing its unique American College Student Panel™ that includes 250,000 college student respondents from more than 800 four-year colleges and universities in all 50 states. For more information, visit https://collegepulse.com/.
Methodology:
These results are based on a survey of 1,500 undergraduate students currently attending two- and four-year colleges and universities. Interviews were conducted among a random sample of students who are part of College Pulse’s American College Student Panel™, which includes more than 250,000 undergraduate students at more than 800 colleges and universities in all 50 states. To ensure that the survey results reflect the views of all college students nationally we apply a post-stratification adjustment based on demographic benchmarks derived from the most recent Current Population Survey (CPS).