College students are more likely to register as Republicans and support President Bush than the general public, according to a survey released yesterday by Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP).

The nationwide poll of 1,202 undergraduates revealed that 61 percent approve of Bush’s performance as president, compared to 53 percent of all voters.

College students, 81 percent of whom say they will definitely or probably vote in the 2004 elections, could tip the scales in next year’s presidential race, the survey results indicated.

“It sends the message that youth are up for grabs in 2004,” said Jonathan S. Chavez ’05, who directed the survey for the IOP’s Student Advisory Committee (SAC).

“In the same way that politicians look at senior citizens or veterans or farmers as voting blocks, they have to have a similar perspective on younger voters,” said IOP Director Daniel R. Glickman, who served as secretary of agriculture from 1995 to 2001.

College students form “an untapped reservoir for politicians and political parties to mine,” Glickman said.

Democratic college students slightly favored Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., over former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, 17 percent to 16 percent, among 2004 democratic presidential hopefuls.

Retired General Wesley K. Clark trailed with 9 percent, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, who is scheduled to visit Harvard on Monday, followed with 8 percent.

But Dean’s supporters, the survey concluded, are more involved in the campaign.

The survey found that 71 percent of Dean’s supporters were willing to volunteer for his campaign, compared to only 49 percent of Lieberman’s supporters.

“Right now Lieberman is doing well because of name recognition,” Chavez said.

But Lieberman spokesperson Jano G. Cabrera said that college students, having grown up during the Clinton-Gore years, are more likely to support Lieberman’s centrist policies on free trade, crime, and taxes.

The Dean campaign is “reaching out very aggressively to college students across the country,” said spokesperson Garrett M. Graff ‘03, who noted that Dean spoke to more than 10,000 students in six states during a four day span in early October. Survey respondents expressed mounting frustration with the President Bush’s foreign policy, with 87 percent saying that “members of the Bush administration” have been “hiding some things” or “mostly not telling the truth” about the situation in Iraq.

Still, students seem to admire Bush’s leadership ability.

“They like the warrior but they don’t like the war,” Glickman said.