Things are heating up amongst the remaining main Democratic Candidates, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg, and Amy Klobuchar, on and off of the debate stage. I know that I personally don't have cable access and therefore was not able to watch the debates live, and had to rely on highlight reels and news outlets to report on who the "winners" and "losers" were.
CREDIT: JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK
But with so much information out there, especially if you use Twitter as your source of news (in which case you're getting just as much of people's toxic opinions as you are actual news), it can be hard to determine:
1) What actually happened?
2) What issues were discussed?
3) Who actually won?
While debate performance is something that is somewhat measurable, and is based on performance of the candidates, I was particularly interested in seeing how these results correlated with perception of candidates from college students.
According to a weekly collaborative poll between Chegg and CollegePulse, Bernie Sanders is leading among the college students surveyed across the United States by a landslide.
I found the results from the poll to be incredibly interesting, in how the support for candidates from college students has overall decreased over the last few months, except for candidate Bernie Sanders. There were a few patterns that particularly interested me:
1) That support for Michael Bloomberg, while lower than other candidates, has increased overall. He is someone who has decidedly been considered a loser in the debates thus far.
2) That support for Elizabeth Warren, while she is in second place amongst college students, has declined over the last few months. She is someone who has decidedly been considered a winner in the debates thus far.
3) How low the other candidates besides Sanders are in terms of support.
It doesn't surprise me at all that Bernie Sanders has a large amount of the support from college students, but it does surprise me that everyone else remains so low, especially after a rise in support for other candidates who performed well in the debates.
It does, however, make me wonder if this nearly unanimous support for Sanders from college students (compared to that of the general public) is due to a lack of following of the debates because of busy schedules, or because of passion for his policies?
I highly encourage any and all college students to be fully doing their research on candidates and their policies, and tuning in to any debates they are able to. Another easy thing to do is follow all the candidates on social media, as they often post clips and quotes from debates and other important events.
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