Students at Saint Leo University make election predictions

ST. LEO, Fla. — Political Science students at Saint Leo University have been working hard since the semester started in August to prepare their presidential election predictions for their campaigns and elections class.

The class is only offered during election years, and the teacher says it goes beyond a lot of college classes because it teaches students things they will need to know in life regardless of what career paths they choose. Among those, Frank Orlando said it teaches them all about elections, polls and politics.

And on Tuesday, the students will get to see how accurate their predictions were, as the country votes to elect former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris to the highest office in the country.

Orlando teaches the campaigns and elections class and said, students spend the entire semester putting together predictions on who they think will win the presidential race.

“Each student in the class is assigned a state, and they have to become the undisputed expert in that state,” he said. 

Students take turns explaining key points in their respective states, which includes, of course, Florida.

“I’ve been working on learning more about my home state of Florida,” said sophomore Hunter Compton.

Compton said he has taken many factors into consideration when making his prediction.

“Looking at demographics, voting trends historically, different polling resources from different media outlets, or seeing a candidate spend more time and more resources in an area, how could this effect this, things such as that,” he said.

He thinks Trump will win Florida, but admits he could be wrong.

“I did not expect there to be so many non-party affiliates in Florida,” he said. “Which, of course, means there are lots of votes up for grabs for both parties — which, like I said, could have a very big effect on who’s going to win the state.”

Regardless of who wins the election, Orlando says his students learned valuable skills this semester that they’re nearly guaranteed to use in life.

“With political science, beyond just majors, literally everyone is going to be practicing politics, everyone is a citizen and at some level, they have this duty to kind of be a part of the process. So I think that this is something that’s important for everyone,” Frank said.

On Election Day, all of the students will meet at school after the polls have closed so they can watch all the results come in to see how their predictions went.