Other Thoughts on the Statewide Mock Election

I posted on Idaho’s High School mock election as regards to Congressman Sali earlier. Let’s take a look at the Senate and the Presidency:

Of the more than 4,704 online ballots cast Thursday and Friday by students at 54 schools across the state, and tallied up this morning, 47.8 percent favored Democrat Barack Obama for president, to 45.6 percent for Republican John McCain. Independent Ralph Nader got 4 percent, Libertarian Bob Bar got 1.6 percent and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin got 1 percent.

The students favored Republican Jim Risch for the U.S. Senate with 47.7 percent of the vote, to 34.7 percent for Democrat Larry LaRocco, 7.1 percent for “Pro-Life,” 6.5 percent for independent Rex Rammell and 4 percent for Libertarian Kent Marmon.

There can be no comfort in  LaRoccoville. He won 34.7%, 13 points behind Obama. 

The one thing I found fascinating was the third party votes. 6.6% of Students cast 3rd Party votes for the Presidency, and 17.6% cast third party votes for the U.S. Senate. Some third party activists may see this as a sign of hope for the future. I would tend to view this a reflection of three things.

 First of all, these voters are perhaps more open-minded now than they willl be as adults and rather than trying to vote strategically, they just voted for what they wanted.

 Second, I think it shows a kind of discontent that’s out in the state and the nation with our current state of affairs. This would be true in both the Obama and 3rd party votes.

Third, the vote for “Pro-Life” in this mock election is heartening. I doubt most of the students voting knew who Pro-Life (the candidate formerly known as Marvin Richardson) was, but that they voted for the candidate out of a strong belief in the pro-life cause.