John Cote, Staff Writer
The Florida Presidential preference primary election is right around the corner. Many voters, including Florida Southern Students are unsure about which candidate they plan to vote for in this upcoming primary election or are simply uninterested in this political race.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 7-14 among 2,009 adults, including 1,525 registered voters, finds that 35 percent of voters say that Hillary Clinton would make either a good or great president and 40 percent of voters say Clinton would be either poor or terrible in the White House; Nearly a third (31 percent) say Donald Trump would be either a good or great president and roughly half (52 percent) think Trump would make a poor or terrible president.
Are FSC students as passionate about political polls?
Although election polls attract a great deal of attention for their ability to predict the outcome of elections, their most important function is to help citizens understand the campaign’s meaning and who is voting, according the Pew Research Center.
The presidential preference primary has been a widely discussed topic here at Florida Southern, the Republicans Club and the college Democrats Club, beginning the majority of these conversations.
“I think students have a predisposition on who they plan to vote for, but I am not fully convinced they have done an ample amount of research to actually understand why they are voting for them,” student Zach Smith said, “and I also don’t believe they know the preference primary in coming up because of heavy college workloads and the prominence of absentee ballots used among college students.”
The early voting period for the Florida Presidential Preference Primary Election is March 5 -12, with the primary set for March 15. Senior Merrick Legutki believes this date has slipped the mind of most of the student population.
“No way, I don’t think any of my friends or peers know that it is coming up the first week of March because of spring break and midterms, I’ll be honest I didn’t know it was that soon until you told me,” Legutki said.
This election is key for Republicans and Democrats alike, as they need to pick a candidate to run for their respective party and against the competition.
According to college Republicans President, Tyler Hiller, students are not very aware or interested in this election. The organization does not meet very often and the attendance of those meetings are low.
“I haven’t informed the college Republicans of the date yet,” College Republican’s Club President Tyler Hillier said. “This is because the club has not met to discuss this topic yet.”
Maybe a reason for Republican student apprehension in political news, is the lack of a true Republican frontrunner. There are several candidates that have dropped out, but are still on the ballot.
Jeb bush is one of these and because people sent in early votes there is no re-do, so uninformed students may end up voting for candidates who are no longer running, if they vote at all.
Getting students to vote during this election is key for the future elections especially for Republicans. There are currently only two Democratic candidates (Clinton and Sanders) to choose from, while there are five Republican candidates: Carson, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, and Trump.
