John Kerry won a mock election held Friday by the ISU Libertarians.

Kerry took 58.9 percent of the 253 votes and President Bush tallied only 29.2 percent.

But 253 is a small sample compared to the more than 25,000 students at Iowa State. So who will the campus vote for in Tuesday’s actual election?

Political science professor Kurt Thurmaier said he thinks a majority of ISU students will vote for Kerry.

“It’s my impression that the students see the Democrats as more progressive,” said Jeremy Alm, secretary for the ISU Libertarians.

But ISU Republicans disagree. Louis Kishkunas, president of the ISU College Republicans, said the election won’t be a wash.

“I think we’re going to have close to a 50/50 split,” Kishkunas said. “I don’t know who’s going to end up on top, but there are a lot more conservatives on campus than people think.”

ISU Greens president Matt Denner said the backgrounds of the ISU students will play a large part in determining who takes the campus vote.

“I hope they vote for Kerry, but I think it’s going to be very close,” Denner said. “Iowa State has a large population of students who come from rural backgrounds, and unfortunately those people have voted for conservatives in the past, rather than recognizing that the Democratic Party and Green Party could help them more.”

Arguably the biggest issue debated by the two leading presidential candidates is the war in Iraq. Thurmaier said the war issue is the driving force behind his opinion that Kerry will take the student vote.

“I sense from many of my students a real concern about the war in Iraq,” Thurmaier said. “They tend to think it’s been a bad decision and badly managed.”

Though the war issue spans all age groups, the fear of a possible draft concerns the student population more than others, said Eric McGlinchey, assistant professor of political science.

“There’s a very legitimate fear of a quote-unquote backdoor draft or a real draft,” McGlinchey said. “There’s some concern, too, about where the people to staff the military are going to come from. That affects all young people.”

Gabe Whitaker, president of the ISU Democrats, said this issue is the main reason Kerry will be favored by the students.

“There’s a lot of fear of a draft if Bush is re-elected, and I don’t think Kerry would instate a draft,” he said.

Kishkunas said both Bush and Kerry’s views on education and how to manage student loan debt will be instrumental in campus voting. Thurmaier said Bush’s deficit spending plays a large part in that.

“I think [the students] are also concerned about the incredible increase in deficit spending and how the war is just pulling all sorts of money away from things they care about, especially social services and education,” Thurmaier said.

Alm said neither Bush nor Kerry has really dealt with the issue he feels is most important to the students.

“The biggest issues pertain to everyone, and I would say the biggest issue is liberty,” Alm said. “Both Bush and Kerry, they don’t talk about liberty, they talk about better ways to spend our money.”

Alm said many voters don’t have a clear favorite, but rather they “settle” on one.

“A lot of people who support Bush don’t think he’s that great, but he’s better than Kerry and vice versa,” Alm said. “I think there’s been a general trend in voting against someone rather than for someone.”

Voter registration records in Ames lean toward this idea.

Ames voters in the 18 to 24 age bracket as of mid-October do not dramatically lean right or left. In fact, 53 percent of young voters marked “no party” on their voter registration cards. Of voters who self-identified as Republican or Democrat, the numbers are close; 25 percent marked Democrat and 22 percent marked Republican.

“Young people are actually going to turn out; ever since 18-year-olds have been given the right to vote, the number of people in that age group that have voted has decreased in every presidential election,” Alm said. “I think we’ll see a change in that with a large increase [in turnout].”

McGlinchey said students will feel more of a “sense of urgency” than they have in the past.

“In 2000, we were all kind of lulled into the security of the Clinton years, and the discussion was very different then,” McGlinchey said.

“The issues weren’t nearly as frightening as they are now; there wasn’t a sense or urgency like there is now.”

Instrumental in the increase of student voters has been the success of programs like Rock the Vote and The New Voters Project. Rock the Vote has been responsible for registering 1,433,569 young voters. The New Voters Project has targeted six swing states — Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico and Wisconsin — and has registered 348,187 new youth voters. There are now 2 million 18- to 24-year-olds who are eligible to vote in these states.

“Students truly are registering to vote in unprecedented numbers,” Thurmaier said. “If they actually vote, which they haven’t done before, then I think they have the power to tip a very tight race.”