THERE ARE POLLS, THEN THERE ARE POLLS...
A Tip-o-the-Hat to Andre in Atlanta in the Daily Kos for alerting me to this important breaking story!
I have a crystal clear memory of voting in that very first Weekly Reader Poll in 1956 at good ol’ Eastridge Elementary School in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I voted for President Dwight Eisenhower over Adlai Stevenson. Forgive me. I was being held captive by a Republican family. And I was only 7 years old and in the Second Grade. Suffice it to say, I never voted for another Republican for President in a mock or any other kind of election.
Just days before Americans choose our next president, voting has concluded in the Weekly Reader Student Presidential Election Poll. And the nation's students resoundingly say that Barack Obama will be the country's next leader. In the 14th Weekly Reader election survey, with more than 125,000 votes cast from kindergarten through 12th grade, the result was Obama 54.7% and John McCain 42.9% (with "other" candidates receiving 2.5% of the student vote). The Obama victory in the classroom electoral vote was even more resounding: The Democrat won 33 states and the District of Columbia, garnering 420 electoral votes, while McCain took 17 states and 118 electoral votes.
For the past 52 years, the results of the Weekly Reader poll have been consistently on target, with the student vote correctly predicting the next president in 12 out of 13 elections. (The only time the kids were wrong was 1992, when they chose George H.W. Bush over Bill Clinton.) This year, as in 2000 and 2004, the student election was conducted in conjunction with noted polling organization Zogby International.