Yeshiva U. Students Back Donald Trump in Poll — Women Even More Than Men
Donald Trump Image by Getty Images
By Josh Nathan-Kazis September 20, 2016
Donald Trump has struggled with low poll numbers among college students and among women.
But a new survey from Yeshiva University’s student newspaper suggests that at least one type of student prefers Trump: Orthodox Jews, and particularly Orthodox Jewish women.
According to a survey of 300 Yeshiva University students published September 18 by student paper The Commentator, 37% prefer Trump, while 27% back Hillary Clinton. Another 17% said they were undecided.
Among female students, the paper’s reported results were more striking: 45% of the female students surveyed backed Trump, compared to 35% who back Clinton.
That’s in sharp contrast to Trump’s national and New York polls, where he’s trailed significantly among young people and women.
More that 2,000 students attend YU’s three undergraduate colleges in Manhattan — the all-male Yeshiva College, the all-female Stern College, and the Sy Syms School of Business. The vast majority of the school’s undergraduate students are Orthodox Jews.
It’s difficult to know how much to make of The Commentator’s results, as the student paper offers scant details on its methodology in a post about the survey. Students were polled between September 8 and September 11; only 76 of the 300 participants were women, raising the likelihood of a large margin of error.
If legitimate, however, the results are quite different from other surveys of young female voters. As of September 8, Clinton lead Trump nationally among women by 17%, and among 18-39 year olds by 20%, according to the Washington Post. In New York State, the gap is even broader: An Emerson College poll in August found that Clinton led by 33% among female likely voters.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
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