My last post said that there were large moves towards the Democrats at several elite universities between 1960 and 1964. According to the polls, in 1960 the Republican vote share was higher at Yale, Princeton, and Stanford than it was in the general public; in 1964, it was lower. What about other universities? The Daily Illini led an effort to poll students at Big Ten universities in 1960 and 1964. The results (I just show Republican share, since they reported the two-party vote--they don't mention any significant write-ins).
1960 1964
Illinois 52% 36%
Indiana 63%
Iowa 58% 42%
Michigan 54%
Michigan St. 30%
Minnesota 45%
Northwestern 65% 48%
Ohio St. 64% 39%
Wisconsin 56%
I found results for the University of North Carolina to represent the South. In 1960, a poll found 52% for Kennedy and 42% for Nixon, with the rest undecided. In 1964, it was 57% Johnson, 37% Goldwater, 5% write-ins, and 1% undecided. Those were close to the overall results for the state in those elections (52% for Kennedy in 1960 and 56% for Johnson in 1964). The swings at Ohio State, Iowa, and Illinois were similar to the swings in their states and considerably smaller than the swings at the elite colleges.
One of the stories on the 1964 Stanford poll breaks it down by class: support for Goldwater was 37% among freshmen, 31% among sophomores, and 22% among juniors and seniors. It also had information on parents' political preferences: 51% said both parents were Republican, 20% that both were Democrats, the the rest that the parents were independents or had different political preferences. Taken together, these points suggest that political preferences changed while at college.
I also ran across a few surveys of faculty, which I'll talk about in my next post.
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