This article was co-written by Naomi Corlette, Conan Lu, Aidan Scully, and Kayla Springer. Data visualizations by Lucy Ding and Julia Poulson.
As part of the Fall 2022 Campus Poll series this semester, the Harvard Political Review seeks to understand the views of Harvard undergraduates on a variety of political topics, from campus politics to cultural issues to national policy. This is the second of five biweekly polls to assess the change in students’ views over the course of the semester. You can view the recap of Week One here.
Week Two of the Harvard Political Review’s Fall 2022 Campus Poll was conducted online via Qualtrics from Oct. 3, 2022 to Oct. 8, 2022 among the 266 valid and late respondents to the Week One poll. Unfinished and late responses were invalidated and excluded from the final analysis, leaving 129 valid responses for a 48.5% valid response rate. Unlike Week One, this was not a random sample of Harvard students and instead used a panel of students that had already responded to our first poll. This difference in methodology limits our ability to make comparison to Week One results and should be considered in any attempts to draw conclusions from between the two polls.
The following is a digest version of the poll results, featuring some of the most noteworthy data points as determined by our writers.
Republicans more optimistic about midterms than Democrats
The statement “I believe the upcoming midterm elections will provide positive change for the country” can be seen as subjective, because what counts as positive change is subjective depending on who you are. When considered alongside political affiliation, however, the answers to this question reveal how people with different political beliefs predict that those who agree with their values will perform. In stark contrast, 60% of Harvard College Republicans agree that the election will produce positive change, while only 15.5% of Democrats feel the same. Interestingly, no Democrat respondents strongly agreed with the statement, while 13.6% of Republican respondents did. On the other hand, 25% of Democrats disagreed with this statement compared to only 6.7% of Republicans that did the same.
There are several reasons students may feel this way. First, historically the president’s party loses ground during midterm elections. In 2018, Democrats gained seats during the Trump administration. In 2010, the opposite thing happened to the Obama administration. Given Biden’s inconsistent performance in the polls, and the fact that he is at this point facing high levels of disapproval, it is likely that he will face similar challenges.
In this election in particular, there are twice as many uncontested elections with a Republican candidate than a Democrat. Additionally, polls suggest Republicans may need just a slight majority of the popular vote and will likely win the House. Although Democrats are still leading in Senate polls, many races are close enough that Republicans still stand a chance. Democrats’ slight lead in polls is narrowing, and it seems that Harvard students are taking notice.
60% of Republicans would support intervention in Taiwan, 33% in Ukraine
Since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the question of how involved the United States should be in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia has been an evolving one. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. has sent approximately $15.2 billion in aid to Ukraine in the form of weapons such as anti-aircraft systems, helicopters, firearms and ammunition, medical equipment, and more. While Biden has announced that he will not deploy troops to Ukraine, some mystery remains about the extent of U.S. involvement in the conflict, with reports of secret U.S. intelligence involvement in the conflict, and accusations from Russia that U.S. spies helped to coordinate Ukrainian missile attacks on Russian forces.
When asked if they agreed that the U.S. should take a more active role in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in light of Russia’s recent efforts to annex parts of Ukraine, respondents were very evenly split. 36% agreed that the U.S. should take a more active role, 30% where neutral, and 34% disagreed. A small minority felt strongly in either direction, with 7% strongly agreeing with increased involvement, and 8% disagreeing.
There also appeared to be a weak connection between support for increased intervention in Ukraine and political party. In the poll, Democratic respondents were slightly more likely to agree with increasing U.S. involvement than Republican respondents. Among Democratic respondents, 44% agreed, 32% were neutral, and 24% disagreed. Among Republican respondents, 33% agreed that the US should take a more active role in the conflict, 7% were neutral, and 60% disagreed.
Democrats, first-years more likely to learn about campus events from Sidechat
Sidechat, a campus-specific social media platform, acts as a conduit for information and discourse surrounding campus issues. Posts are anonymous and have a limit of 255 characters, creating an environment of unfiltered candor.
Many students get their Harvard-related news from Sidechat, but there exist asymmetries along partisan lines. 29.7% of self-identified Democrats report regularly learning about campus events from Sidechat, compared to 6.7% of Republicans. Usage is also higher among first-years and sophomores — 29.5% and 28.2%, respectively — compared to 18.5% and 9.5% for seniors and juniors.
Social media has often been criticized for increasing polarization. As ideas are rewarded through mechanisms like upvotes and favorable comments, they are shaped by, and shape, the dominant opinion. In response to the prompt “I approve of the job performance of the Harvard Administration,” only 32% of respondents who used Sidechat for news regularly responded neutrally, compared to 56% for respondents who did not. However, no major differences in opinion appeared in prompts about the Harvard Undergraduate Association and single-gender organizations, both of which are frequent topics of discussion on Sidechat.
Conclusion
Much like the results from Week One of the Fall 2022 Campus Poll, Week Two’s results indicated a divergence along party lines among Harvard students. There was a partisan divergence over optimism about the midterm elections, for which Republicans were more optimistic than Democrats. Campus experiences seemed similarly divided by party, with slight correlations between party and Sidechat usage. It is important to note, however, that due to the small sample size and small proportion of Republicans among the respondents, these results may not represent universal political divisions at Harvard.
Every other week throughout the semester, the HPR will seek to bring light to shifting opinions on campus concerning a wide range of political and cultural issues, as well as gauge the student body’s thoughts on current events such as these.
Image by Swathi Kella created for use by Harvard Political Review.
