Local students favor Democrats in mock election, Republicans reign statewide

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Kids in Charles City leaned toward the Democrats, but students statewide voted overwhelmingly Republican up and down the Iowa ballot, according to the Iowa Youth Straw Poll conducted Tuesday.

Almost 40,000 K-12 students in more than 300 schools participated in the unscientific straw poll, which was sponsored by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate.

Robert Pittman’s social studies classes in Charles City participated in the straw poll. Pittman said that sometimes the results in Charles City are different from the statewide results, for a lot of reasons.

“Floyd County tends to lean a bit more Democratic than the state as a whole; second, as we have students break down the issues and look at candidate stances first, and then the party, that tends to shift their stances a bit,” he said.

Pittman said that one of the big things his students learn from the mock election is how to “really delve into what the candidates say and what their actions have been.” He said that the students in his class don’t just look at what the candidates say in their campaigns, but they track the candidates’ voting history online to see what they’ve actually done.

Students didn’t have to venture to any polling place, they simply voted online on their laptops, phones or a personal computer.

In Charles City, the Democratic ticket for governor — Fred Hubbell and Rita Hart — received 93 votes, just a few more than Republican incumbent ticket of Gov. Kim Reynolds and Adam Gregg, which received 87 votes. The Clear Water Party ticket of Gary Siegwarth and Natalia Blaskovich received 11 votes and the Libertarian ticket Jake Porter and Lynne Gentry received 7.

Statewide, Reynolds/Gregg received 46.5 percent of the vote, Hubbell/Hart received 38.1 percent, Porter/Gentry 7 percent and Siegwarth/Blaskovich 8.3 percent.

For U.S. House of Representatives Iowa District 4, Democrat J.D. Scholten received 123 votes to incumbent Republican Steve King’s 65 in Charles City. Libertarian candidate Edward Preston received 7 votes while Charles Aldirch received 3.

Districtwide, students gave King 53.6 percent of their votes, Scholten 33.9 percent, Aldrich 6.6 percent and Peterson 5.9 percent.

“Perhaps the most important thing that students get out of the mock election experience is that they get a test run on how to vote thoroughly,” Pittman said. “They look at all the candidates, they look at the issues they care about and investigate them thoroughly. We hope as adults, they do the same.”

Students across the state also voted in district U.S. House races. Republicans easily swept three of those races — Christopher Peters (42 percent) over incumbent Rep. Dave Loebsack (38 percent) in District 2, Rep. David Young (45 percent) over Cindy Axne (37 percent) in District 3.

The closest contest was between Rod Blum and Abby Finkenauer for the District 1 seat. The race had a margin of 342 votes, with Blum coming out ahead with 47.4 percent to Finkenauer’s 44.6 percent.

Also included on the students’ mock ballot was the question of “Will you vote when you are 18?” In Charles City, 174 responded with “Yes,” and 24 responded with “No.”

Statewide, 84 percent of the students said that they will register to vote when they are old enough while 16 percent said they would not.

Pittman said that students and adults alike need to be reminded of the importance of voting.

“Remember, democracy dies without attention,” he said.