Since this is the Election Issue, we decided we should conduct a mock election of our own.
But since this is the Insider, of course we weren’t just going to put on some run-of-the-mill, boring survey of a bunch of pundits and know-it-alls. We wanted to get the vote that really matters – the youth vote. And we mean youth, like elementary school kids.
We went to Christa McAuliffe School to take the political pulse of a portion of the Concord student population. After we interviewed students from kindergarten through fifth grade, we distributed a three-contest ballot to Bonnie Larochelle’s third-grade class.
The ballot contained the three “big” races: president, governor and U.S. Senate. Students could simply check off the box of the candidate they liked best or write in somebody else.
Well, the results are in, and it was quite a runaway. Here’s how they voted.
President
Hillary Clinton: 17
Donald Trump: 3
Gary Johnson (write-in): 1
Governor
Colin Van Ostern: 18
Chris Sununu: 3
U.S. Senate
Maggie Hassan: 14
Kelly Ayotte: 7
Notes
Of the 21 voters, 10 went with all Democrats.
No ballot was all-Republican.
The Johnson supporter voted for one Democrat and one Republican.
Nobody who voted for Trump also voted for Sununu.
One ballot contained votes for both Ayotte and Trump.