CBS poll paints Ohio State blue

A new CBS News/UWIRE/Chronicle of Higher Education poll of college students in four swing states – Ohio, Colorado, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania – shows Obama with a significant lead in youth support. The self-administered online poll ran from October 6 - 19 at 50 colleges across the four battleground states.

Of the nearly 25,000 students polled, more than 60 percent in each state preferred the Obama-Biden ticket. Likely voters at Ohio State's Columbus campus favored the Democratic ticket, with 63 percent supporting Obama-Biden and 33 percent backing the Republican ticket. McCain's numbers at Ohio State's Newark campus were higher, but students still favored Obama.

At Ohio State University, more McCain supporters had reservations about their support for the candidate. More than half of Obama supporters said they enthusiastically supported him, while 29 percent of McCain supports said the same about their candidate. These differences were even larger across all of Ohio and the other three states.

"This data indicates that Obama's support among students is more solid, less likely to change before the election and higher enthusiasm also means Obama supporters are more likely to turn out and vote than McCain supporters," said Erik Nisbet, an assistant professor of communication and liaison for the study.

Obama scored better in perceived ability to bring about real change, improve the respondent's life and improve America's image in the world. Students are also more likely to say they relate to Obama and believe he cares about people like them. McCain scored higher on perceived ability to be an effective commander-in-chief.

A majority of registered student voters said Obama is different than other Democrats, while most agreed that McCain is a typical Republican.

Students in the four states are paying almost as much attention to the election as adult voters, according to the poll. Roughly half of the students polled said they are paying a lot of attention to the election, compared to 65 percent of adults.

More than 90 percent of students said they were registered to vote, with more than 80 percent saying they will definitely vote in the election. Ohio had the lowest percentage of students, 82, to report they were definitely going to vote. Colorado had the most with 91 percent.



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