A sign supporting Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry hangs in the window of a Lowell House resident. Kerry placed third in a Crimson poll asking Democratic-leaning students which candidate they support.

Bush is out and Dean is in, according to a recent survey of Harvard undergraduates on political issues ranging from the Democratic primaries to gay marriage.

Nearly 76 percent of students disapproved of how George W. Bush has handled his job as president, while 24 percent rallied behind him in a poll of 365 undergraduates conducted by The Crimson over a four-day period in mid-December.

And former Vermont Gov. Howard B. Dean led the field of Democratic presidential candidates for the 2004 election, garnering the support of 47 percent of Democratic-leaning Harvard students. Students who said they would support a Democratic candidate in a hypothetical Congressional election were identified as Democratic-leaning.

Retired General Wesley K. Clark and Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., trailed Dean with 22 percent and 18 percent of Democratic-leaning undergraduates, respectively, endorsing each candidate.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.

Bush’s numbers reflect an unusually low approval rating—especially given that the poll ended shortly after news of Saddam Hussein’s capture broke. Nationwide, roughly 63 percent of Americans support the sitting president, according to a Dec. 15-16 Gallup poll.

The Crimson results may reflect a student body “more left-of-center” than most campuses nationwide, said Institute of Politics (IOP) Director Daniel R. Glickman.

In the question that asked which party’s candidate poll participants would vote for in their Congressional district, the majority of Harvard students—77 percent—identified themselves as voting Democrat.

But college students nationwide are more likely to align themselves with the Republican Party, according to an October IOP poll.

Jonathan S. Chavez ’05, who helped oversee the IOP poll for its Student Advisory Committee, wrote in an e-mail that he was not surprised that Harvard is a “much more liberal campus than the nation as a whole.”

Campus partisans offered their own viewpoints on students’ dissatisfaction with the Bush presidency.

Harvard College Democrats President Andy J. Frank ’05 contends that Bush’s low approval ratings are nothing out of the norm.

“President Bush is a very polarizing figure. You either love him or hate him,” he wrote in an e-mail. “And so Hussein’s capture did little to change these perceptions, especially since Harvard students are so politically aware.”

But Harvard Republican Club President Mark T. Silvestri ’05 wrote in an e-mail that he believes the liberal tendencies of Harvard undergraduates played a part in the results.

With 77 percent of Harvard undergraduates registered to vote, and 81 percent of respondents to the IOP poll stating they will definitely or probably vote, college students nationwide could play a significant role in the upcoming election.