Nearly three-fourths of Harvard undergraduates support Democratic candidate Bill Clinton in next week's presidential election, according to a poll conducted last week by The Crimson.

Seventy-four percent of the 471 students surveyed at random said they would vote for the Clinton-Gore ticket, while 14 percent endorsed President Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle's bid for reelection. Independent candidate Ross Perot was chosen by five percent of those polled.

These results place Harvard near the liberal extreme of Ivy League schools, based on surveys conducted by student newspapers last week at all Ivy schools except for Cornell University.

Brown University barely beat out Harvard for the highest percentage of Clinton backers, with 79 percent, while only 9 percent of Brown students called themselves Bush-Quayle supporters.

The University of Pennsylvania proved the most conservative, with only 51 percent saying they support Clinton-Gore, and 20 percent Bush-Quayle.

The poll at Harvard, conducted on October 21, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percent.

David C. Bunker '93, president of the Harvard-Radcliffe College Democrats, says the strong support for Clinton in the poll "is fairly representative of what I see on campus."

But the Harvard Republican Club President Emil G. Michael '94 says thecampus is more conservative than indicated by thepoll, and predicts that 35 percent of Harvardstudents will vote for Bush on November 3.

"I think that more than twice as many people oncampus will vote for Bush than the poll shows,"Michael says.

"So many of the Clinton-Gore people arebandwagon fans who are not going to pull the leverfor Clinton when it comes time to go to the pollbooth," Michael adds.

While Bunker says most of Clinton'sundergraduate support here is due to thetraditionally liberal makeup of the student body,he says he expects many conservative students tocross party lines this election over social issuessuch as gay rights and abortion rights.

"I think there have to be some independents andRepublicans on campus voting for Clinton," Bunkersays. "I talked to some economically conservativestudents who went to the Republican Convention andsaid they are tired of the pandering Bush has donefor the right wing."

The poll also revealed that education is one ofthe issues that Harvard students will weigh mostheavily when casting their ballots next week.

When asked if the candidates' positions onabortion, education, environment, health care andthe job market were "not important, somewhatimportant or very important" in influencing theirvotes, 75 percent of the students placed educationin the "very important" category.

Fifty-five percent said the job market is "veryimportant," while 53 percent placed the abortionissue on that level. Health care and theenvironment were rated "very important" by only 45and 43 percent of students, respectively.

Voting Trends