Almost 90 percent of Hillsdale students to vote Romney

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Almost 90 percent of Hillsdale College students plan to vote for GOP candidate Mitt Romney in the upcoming election, according to a poll conducted by The Collegian, but less than half of them are happy about it.

One user’s comment on The Collegian poll summed up what seemed to be a general sentiment:

“I’d rather give Romney a chance than Obama a second one.”

About 8 percent of students said they support Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, with just under 3 percent voting for President Barack Obama.

College Democrats president junior Mason Stuard was enthusiastic about Obama when he was elected but said the president has let his supporters down in the last four years.

“We had so many hopes from the president, and he’s not ushered in a new era of politics,” Stuard said. “He’s continued to further the divisiveness and the breakdown of the American system by making the extremes more noticeable in each party. Eventually the teeter-totter is going to snap.”

But he said he is not thrilled about the other end of that teeter-totter, either.

“Both sides put up awful candidates,” he said. “There is a case for President Obama, and there is a case for Governor Romney, but neither is very compelling.”

Economic growth was the top issue for Hillsdale student voters at 40.2 percent. Moral and religious issues were second, at 32.7 percent. Some of those did not fit into the typical box, however. One commenter responded:

“Social issues, but not in respect to ‘moral decline.’ As in, I’m pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and pro-widely available birth control, for example. This would be my No. 1, except that I will not vote for Obama, so the budget became my fall-back No.1.”

Of the 387 respondents, 30 respondents who picked a candidate in the poll said they support Libertarian Gary Johnson.

“Johnson has good ideas of how governments really work and what government really is,” said junior Schuyler Dugle, who said he does not plan on voting in the upcoming election. “I think it’s important for third parties to get enough votes so that we can actually change government, both through changing people’s opinions and through actual elected officials.”

A few of those polled said that Romney’s recruitment of Rep. Paul Ryan to his ticket encouraged them to vote for the former governor.