Indiana University isn’t just a large portion of Bloomington’s population; it’s also a significant voting bloc in the state of Indiana. In the 2020 presidential election, 25,329 IU Bloomington students voted — casting more ballots than voters in Spencer, Owen or Randolph county .
Youth and college student participation is perennially important in national elections, and this year, opposition to the United States’ stance on Israel and growing disillusionment with the two parties has taken a toll on the youth and college-aged vote .
IU students showed up in record numbers during the 2020 election , overwhelmingly favoring Joe Biden (82.68%), but both voter turnout and registration among IU students has waned in the years since.
As IU begins its fall semester and Election Day draws closer, here’s a look at which candidates the IU vote has favored in previous elections, how many IU students vote and how the vote breaks down across demographic lines.
How we collected our data
We collected numbers on IU students’ voter turnout and voter registration numbers through the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) at Tufts University’s “Institute for Democracy & Higher Education” Reports from 2016 to 2022. The IDHE reports use data from approximately 1,200 universities and colleges across the U.S., as well as data from the National Student Clearinghouse .
For candidate choices, we looked at Monroe County voting data in the Bloomington voting precincts that are either entirely within IU or in neighborhoods with high concentrations of student rentals. Since non-students also reside both on IU’s campus and in these neighborhoods, this isn’t an exact science, but it still gives a good look at voting patterns in IU-dominant precincts.
IU students overwhelmingly vote Democrat
In the 2020 presidential and 2022 midterm elections, IU students overwhelmingly favored Democratic candidates.
In 2020, 82.68% of voters in IU-dominant precincts voted for Joe Biden, compared to just 15.15% who voted for Donald Trump. Across Indiana, Biden only won 41% of the vote in 2020.
Indiana has not supported a Democratic candidate since 2008, when Barack Obama won by a narrow margin of 50% to 48.9% against John McCain.
IU students similarly voted for Democrats in the past midterm. In 2022, 84.03% of voters in IU-dominant precincts voted for Democratic candidate for senator Tom McDermott, while only 13.19% voted for Sen. Todd Young. Across the state, 58.6% of voters chose Young, compared to 37.9% who voted for McDermott.
Women vote more at IU, and across the U.S.
According to NSLVE, 60% of eligible male and 73% of eligible female IU students voted in the 2020 election, compared to 65% male and 68.4% female turnout nationally. Political scientists and election forecasters are predicting the 2024 presidential election will be the most “gendered” in recent American history , with Kamala Harris’ focus on abortion and a rightward shift in voting patterns for young men contributing to a widening gender voting gap.
IU voter participation was above average in 2020, below average in 2022
The 2020 presidential election had the highest national voter turnout of any election in the 21 st century , in large part because of the influx of mail-in voting spurred by the pandemic.
IU students similarly shattered turnout records during the 2020 election, beating both the national turnout among eligible voters (66.6%) and the nationwide IDHE average across approximately 1,200 colleges and universities (66%). Out of 37,847 IU students who were eligible, 25,329 voted, according to NSLVE.
IU’s voter turnout — and voter registration rates — fell below both the national and IDHE college average during the 2022 midterm. In 2022, just 18.8% of IU students voted, compared to 30.6% across all IDHE colleges and 46% voter turnout nationally.
IU’s voter registration rates also tumbled drastically between 2020 and 2022, falling from 85% in 2020 (compared to 83% nationally) to 73% in 2022 (compared to 76.1% nationally).
IU votes bluer than Bloomington
If Bloomington is a "liberal bubble in a red state," IU is a liberal stronghold.
Only 15.15% of IU student-dominant precinct voters supported Donald Trump in 2020, compared to 19.15% across all precincts within the city of Bloomington.
Library science, philosophy and gender studies students vote the most overall
In addition to collecting data on age, race and gender, the IDHE dataset also shows voting participation by “field of study.” The IDHE worked with over 1,000 colleges and approximately 8,000 different majors and fields, so the “field of study” is not specific to IU.
IU students showed surprisingly disparate voting patterns by field for the 2020 presidential and 2022 midterm elections.
While fields like communications technologies, English, social studies and education had among the highest turnout in 2020, fields like library science, ethnic/culture/gender studies and philosophy/religious studies participated most in the midterm elections.
Students in library science, philosophy/religious studies, ethnic/culture/gender studies and interdisciplinary studies were among the most consistent voters in the 2020 and 2022 elections.
Reach Brian Rosenzweig at brian@heraldt.com. Follow him on Twitter/X at @brianwritesnews .
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: 7 graphs that explain how Indiana University students vote
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