The Eastern Echo conducted an unscientific exit poll at the EMU Honors College on election day to learn more about voters from those precincts and how they compare to other voters in Washtenaw County and in Michigan.
It’s important to note that this data is only from two precincts in Ypsilanti, both of which vote at the EMU Honors College.
All EMU students who are registered to vote at their address on campus vote at the Honors College. Out of those who responded to our poll, only around 25% of voters were EMU students. It’s important to note that EMU has a large number of commuter students, who would be voting in their hometowns. Additionally, our poll is only of voters who went to the polls on election day, and a lot of students vote by absentee as well.
Although only approximately one in four voters at the Honors College was an EMU student, the vast majority of voters were under 50 years old. Approximately 90% of respondents were younger than 50 years old. Younger voters made up a supermajority in our poll, with around 70% of voters being under 30.
Approximately 87% of respondents voted for Bernie Sanders, while about 9% voted for Joe Biden. This is very close to the actual precinct results, as Sanders won 86% of the vote in the two precincts from the Honors College and Joe Biden won 13%.
Young voters have been one of Sanders’ biggest strengths so far in the primary, and these precincts that skewed heavily towards young voters also voted overwhelmingly for Sanders.
Voters in our poll were split between healthcare and social issues being the most important issue this election cycle. 30% said healthcare was the most important, with another 30% citing social issues. Foreign policy and the economy were the least important issues in our poll, only 11% of voters chose one of those issues as their priority.
On the topic of healthcare, 90% of respondents are in favor of a single-payer healthcare system that abolishes private insurance, which is a staple of the Sanders campaign. The same number of respondents also said they support tuition-free public colleges and universities, another major pillar of Sanders’ campaign.
And while we don’t have demographics for specific precincts, the demographics of our exit poll are very close to the demographics of Washtenaw County. 70% of respondents were white and 19% were African American. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 74% of Washtenaw County residents are white, while around 12% are African American.
Thank you to Ronia Cabansag, Gracie Thompson, and Dan D’Introno for gathering data for this poll.
