Freshman Political Orientation, 2007 edition
Posted 8/21/2007 11:20:00 AM |
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This year, I was able to observe the political orientation of 1855 of our Freshmen out of the ~3800 (based on 2006 numbers) who enrolled. Granted, this is a Facebook convenience sample, but I don't have much reason to believe any group systematically over- or under-represents.
So what do the stats tell us? While the largest portion of students are Liberal, there's strong representation in both the moderate and conservative blocs. This data gets particularly interesting when we compare it against the past two years; while the conservative bloc remains substantial, in 2007 we see a (statistically) significant shift away from incoming freshmen identifying as conservatives. Here's the data by year:
| Political Orientation | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| Very Liberal | 4.85% | 4.75% | 5.23% |
| Liberal | 33.05% | 33.58% | 32.29% |
| Moderate | 27.77% | 27.77% | 27.01% |
| Conservative | 26.44% | 26.46% | 22.37% |
| Very Conservative | .86% | 1.14% | 1.56% |
| Libertarian | 1.56% | 1.39% | 3.02% |
| Apathetic/Other | 5.67% | 4.89% | 8.52% |
| Margin of Error | 1.36 | 1.28 | 1.63 |
In case you're interested in seeing the original posts, here are my studies from 2005 and 2006. I've included the margin of errors for comparison across studies; each year I've had to tweak my methodology to adapt to FB, but I've always counted the same essential element.
Considering the political climate, it certainly isn't surprising to see lower affiliation with conservative causes; what is interesting to me is that the "Liberal" or "Moderate" block hasn't picked up new supporters. To this extent, I believe we're seeing an exodus from conservatives unhappy with their party, and largely without a party to support.
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4 Comments: (Post a Comment)
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At August 21, 2007 4:51 PM,
jkd said...
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also note the several-percentage uptick in "libertarian" identification - "libertarian" being what some conservatives who vote just like other conservatives but don't want to be identified with them, call themselves.
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At August 21, 2007 8:20 PM,
ge said...
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Fred,
It's interesting to compare your results with some percentages that I derived from voter registration data from the Orange County Board of Elections.
In 2000, 48% of new registrants were Democratic, 23% were Republicans, 29% were unaffiliated.
In 2007, 45% of new registrants were Democratic, 18% were Republicans, 38% were unaffiliated.
The obvious winner is the "Unaffiliated" "party". I wonder how that correlates with your data since your data doesn't show any growth of "moderates".
BTW, jkd's definition of "libertarian" is spot on! People were able to register as Libertarians until 2005 or so. The highest number of registrations in any year from 2000 thru 2004 was two (2)! -
At August 22, 2007 1:37 PM,
Calvin Spealman said...
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I read this blog as it comes through my reader, but I hadn't realized you were at UNC, near Charlotte. I'm starting a Python User Group here. i can't remember any language specifics on your blog, so I don't know if you'd be interested. Thought i would mention it in case.
We have a Google Group named CharPy. -
At August 26, 2007 10:06 PM,
Thomas said...
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It's also interesting to note that those who identified as "Very Conservative," though never more than two percent of the sample, doubled in two years.
