CV NEWS FEED // A newly released poll of students at the University of Notre Dame showed Republican nominee Donald Trump ahead of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by nearly two points.
The Irish Rover, a Catholic student-run newspaper at Notre Dame, conducted the poll from September 15 to 18.
The survey found Trump with 47.6% of support compared to Harris who was behind with 45.9% of support.
“If accurate, the results of the survey would mark the first time in twelve years that Notre Dame students have preferred the Republican party’s nominee for president,” reported the Rover’s Shri Thakur and Sam Marchand on Wednesday.
They also noted that the findings “signify a monumental shift towards the former president from his showing at Notre Dame just four years ago.”
“In 2020,” they explained,
Joe Biden had the support of 66 percent of Notre Dame students in a poll conducted by Student Government and NDVotes, while Trump got just 29 percent. In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Trump in a similar poll by a margin of 59 percent to 24 percent.
Elliot Anderson, the president of Notre Dame’s College Republicans chapter, told the Rover that he found it “amazing to see a college campus stand by President Trump.”
Anderson said that he hoped “the trend of ultra-liberal colleges is finally coming to an end with the increasing youth support for conservative policies.”
Florida’s Voice Assistant News Director Eric Daugherty suggested that the poll’s results might be an example of Harris’ struggle to win over Catholic voters.
“Notre Dame is primely a Catholic institution,” Daugherty wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday. “Harris is not winning if she crashes among white Catholics, and Catholics as a whole.”
On September 10, CatholicVote reported that a Pew Research Center poll found Trump leading Harris “by five points among all Catholic voters, with 52% compared to her 47%.”
The same Pew poll showed Trump dominating Harris among white Catholic voters.
A CatholicVote report from earlier this week indicated:
Among white Catholics in particular, the poll found Trump leading by a landslide margin of 23 points, with 61% to Harris’ 38%.
In recent elections, the candidate who has carried the Catholic vote has almost always won the White House.
Per Edison exit polls, Trump won Catholic voters by four points in 2016 but lost them to now-President Joe Biden by five points in 2020.
>> PEW POLL: 52% OF CATHOLICS INCLUDING 61% OF WHITE CATHOLICS BACK TRUMP <<
