Obama Election Watch

There are 50,000 students from outside Iowa now attending college in the state. The state government encourages these students to register and vote in Iowa. This presents a large bloc of potential votes that Obama can collect in his efforts to win this pivotal state.

In 2004 President Bush carried the state of Iowa’s seven electoral votes, albeit by a very slim 10,000 vote margin. Yet, prior to 2004, Iowa had voted for the Democratic nominee in the four previous presidential elections. In the 2004 election, voter registrations were about evenly divided between the two parties. But currently, Democratic voter registrations in Iowa are running about 100,000 ahead of those signing with the GOP.

Iowa stands out today as a prime target for Obama in his effort to switch red states to blue.

In Iowa there is a special opportunity. This is the voting potential of the huge number of students going to college in the state. As a percentage of total population, there are more college students in Iowa than in any state in the nation. This is because, according to the Iowa College Student Aid Commission, there are as many as 50,000 students from out of state who are enrolled in higher education in Iowa. Comparatively few Iowa students leave the state to go to college.

The good news, too, is that the state of Iowa encourages out-of-state college students to register to vote in Iowa. The state government has set up a Web site that gives Iowa college students from any state all the information they need to become eligible to vote in Iowa.

It appears that two thirds of the out-of-state college students in Iowa are from the surrounding states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. In most if not all of these surrounding states, one candidate or the other has a significant edge in the polls. (Minnesota, however, may become competitive if Governor Tim Pawlenty is named as the GOP vice presidential nominee.) By voting in Iowa, where they attend college, instead of in their home states, college students at Iowa’s colleges and universities can have a greater impact on the presidential election.

The most productive voter target for Obama is the flagship University of Iowa in Iowa City. As many as 40 percent of the 29,000 students at the University of Iowa come from outside the state. There may be as many as 12,000 students from out of state at the University of Iowa alone. About a quarter of these out-of-state students are from Obama’s home state of Illinois. Due to Obama’s overwhelming popularity in Illinois, he is expected to carry the state easily. But Illinois students attending college in Iowa can vote in Iowa and help swing that state’s seven electoral votes to Obama.

Similar, but not quite so large, numbers of votes can be picked up on the campus of Iowa State University. There are 26,000 students on the Ames campus. Out-of-state students make up 28 percent of the student body. This means there are more than 7,000 out-of-state voters at Iowa State University who are eligible to cast ballots where they attend school.

On top of this, nearly half of all students at Iowa’s private colleges and universities are from out of state. These schools include Drake University, Grinnell College, Coe College, Iowa Wesleyan, and the University of Dubuque. There are 25,000 or more out-of-state students at these schools who can now register to vote in Iowa.

There are several approaches the Obama campaign can take to convince out-of-state college students to register to vote in Iowa:

• Advertisements in student newspapers on campuses throughout Iowa or on the Web sites of these newspapers can provide the needed voter registration information at a low cost to the Obama campaign.

• Many of the larger campuses have radio stations where advertisements or public service announcements can be aired.

• There are Obama student organizations at the University of Iowa and other campuses. These groups can mount efforts to reach out to out-of-state students and urge them to consider registering to vote in Iowa.

• To reach the nation’s most important network of student communications, Obama supporters on Iowa campuses can place a link to the state’s voter registration Web site on their MySpace or Facebook pages.

• Obama volunteers can be encouraged to hold voter registration drives on campus, at college football games, campus concerts, and at other large gatherings of students.

It is, of course, true that a substantial minority of Iowa’s college students will prefer McCain over Obama. But polls show Obama winning huge margins over McCain among college students nationwide. This means that any effort to boost the vote from college students in Iowa will surely benefit Obama in what is surely to be a key state.

Other Voices (Click to be directed to particular article)

How to Run a Voter Registration Drive