A recent “MyCollegeOptions.org” survey shows statistics on the political views of West Shore students. The online survey was taken in Bob Sarver’s social studies classroom, afterwards the data was compared to state and national statistics.

Forty percent of those surveyed will be eligible to vote in the next election. Eighty-five percent of the class members said they would vote for a president in the first election they are eligible to do so. The classroom was 55 percent male and 45 percent female. The national statistic for gender participation in the survey is 53 percent female, so keep in mind the national statistics had slightly more female participation.

Thirty-seven percent of those in Sarver’s classroom said they would vote for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who on the national level received 32 percent of the vote.

“I’d vote for Bernie because he actually has sensible ideas,” junior Roba Sabawi said. “He has a concrete plan, and represents a position that has been underrepresented.”

Republican candidate Donald Trump garnered 14 percent of the vote in the classroom, while receiving 19 percent in the national poll. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton received 10 percent behind Republican candidate Sen. Marco Rubio’s 13 percent in the classroom. However Rubio lost to Clinton’s 13 percent in the national poll, with Rubio registering 7 percent. The lowest ranking candidates were New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with 2 percent, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley with 2 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with 1 percent.

The most important issue — according to both the classroom and the nation polls — was education at 53 percent. The same percentage applied to the question of whether the country is heading in the right direction, with respondents answering yes 53 percent of the time.

In addition, 54 percent of the class said they distrust politicians and 20 percent said they could care less.  Nationally, 30 percent distrust politicians and 50 percent have no opinion or don’t particularly care.

A majority of those who took the survey said it doesn’t listen to any of the news sources listed on a regular basis, but among the news sources listed CNN was the most followed, and taking second place was Fox News.

By Billy Macom