The Results

Freshmen: Trump: 65.4% Biden: 34.6%

Sophomores: Trump: 57.6% Biden: 43.4%

Juniors: Trump: 58.3% Biden: 41.7%

Seniors: Trump: 64.9% Biden: 35.1%

Teachers: Biden: 72% Trump 28%

What to make of these results

In all of the student classes, Trump was victorious. Interestingly, though, his margin of victory in the sophomore and junior classes is smaller than that of the freshman and senior classes. There isn’t a definite explanation for this; it could just be because of who is in each class. However, one reason for a difference in the poll between each class could be how the poll was distributed to students and who participated in it. While 182 sophomores voted in the poll, only 78 freshmen, 72 juniors, and 78 seniors participated. 

Even with Trump’s majority in the student body, an overwhelming majority of teachers supported Biden. A likely reason for this result is that a good amount of teachers at Davie High do not actually live in Davie County, and instead live in surrounding counties. Several teachers reside in Forsyth County, which typically leans Democrat. However, the rest of the counties that border Davie (Iredell, Rowan, Davidson, and Yadkin) leaned more Republican in the 2012 and 2016 elections. However, only 25 teachers participated in this poll, so these results may not reflect the views of the entire staff at Davie High School. 

Only 433 students and teachers out of our school population of almost 1800 participated in this poll. This means that the results could be biased in several ways. One example is nonresponse bias; the people who did not participate in the survey could have had different views from the people who did participate, which could have changed the outcome of the poll. Another example of bias is response bias, when individuals who did respond to the poll changed their actual answer due to peer pressure and not wanting to share their true beliefs. Both of these biases should be taken into consideration when viewing the results of the poll. 

Davie County typically leans Republican in major elections, so Donald Trump’s win at Davie High is no surprise. However, the margin of Trump’s win at Davie is actually less than the typical Republican majority in Davie County. According to the New York Times, in 2016, Trump won by a margin of 47.5% against Hillary Clinton in Davie County. In 2012, Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama by a margin of 43.6%. However, in the 2020 election at Davie High School, Trump only won by a margin of 19.8%, much less than the typical Republican majority in Davie County. 

A possibility for the smaller Republican majority at Davie High school than in the rest of the county could be the recent trend of young voters supporting Joe Biden. According to a national poll done by the Harvard Institute of Politics, 63% of 18-29-year-old voters support Biden while only 25% support Trump. The other 12% of voters are undecided or support third-party candidates. The increase of young voters leaning Democrat this year could have an impact on the smaller Republican majority at Davie, a high school in a county with a large Republican majority.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our mock election!

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