SOUTH BEND, Ind. — A new student poll at the University of Notre Dame reveals a close presidential race — with President Donald Trump narrowly leading Vice President Kamala Harris by 47.5% to 45.9% — in the first Republican presidential lead among the Notre Dame student body since 2012.

The poll was conducted by The Irish Rover, a campus student newspaper, and published on Sept. 25. It reflects the national consensus that the candidates are closely matched among Catholics: Trump was slightly ahead in a recent Pew Research Center poll, whereas Harris led in the earlier EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research study.

The Rover poll, which was open to all students and aimed towards its 8,000 undergraduates, surveyed 705 participants. Mirroring the current undergraduate enrollment of about 20% non-Catholics at Notre Dame in 2024, 79% of poll respondents belonged to the Catholic faith. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8% at a 95% confidence interval.

Religious affiliation appears to strongly impact student preferences, with 63% of Catholic men selecting Trump and 70% of non-Catholic men opting for Harris. There was also a sharp divide on the basis of sex, with men overall supporting Trump over Harris by a 57%-35% margin, while women chose Harris over Trump by 57%-38%.

Every four years brings the university's new group of undergraduates, and mock campus elections resulted in Democratic landslides in the last two presidential cycles, with Trump performing at only 24% against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and 29.3% against Joe Biden in 2020.

Another 2024 campus poll published by Scholastic/NDTV found Harris leading Trump 57.4% to 42.6%, which represents both a Democratic victory but also a substantial increase towards Trump since 2020.

Professor Geoffrey Layman, the chairman of Notre Dame’s Department of Political Science with research focuses of religion and politics and methodology, provided insight into the polling structure and validity. When considering the margin of error, he stated, “The Rover could conduct another poll tomorrow with the same sample size of 700-and-something and get those results flipped.”

Yet, Layman emphasized, “The trend, I think that we should take seriously is between polls of Notre Dame students in 2020 and 2024. That is real, I'm convinced. There has been a pro-Trump or anti-Democratic shift in the Notre Dame student body.”

Priority Issues

The poll presented the economy and abortion as students’ top priorities.

Daniel Philpott, professor of political theory at Notre Dame, offered his perspective on what he termed “the striking difference from four and eight years ago.” Philpott commented, “Catholics supported Trump by a large margin whereas non-Catholics supported Harris by an even larger margin. I think the abortion issue explains a lot of this disparity.”

Vice President Harris has made abortion a central part of her identity and campaign, advocating for the abolition of the Senate filibuster in order to pass national abortion legalization and embarking on a national abortion tour.

Despite the Catholic Church’s clear teachings on abortion as a “crime against human life,” Harris still enjoyed significant support, polling at 50% among Catholic women on campus.

Notre Dame sophomore Sam Marchand, who conducted the poll alongside junior Shri Thakur, emphasized the careful polling methodology and purposeful circulation in bipartisan political science classes, nonpartisan clubs and student residence halls.

He said, “We wanted to send a survey out to get responses in a way that wasn’t going to give us an inherent right-wing bias.” The responses were weighed by gender, and Layman stated, “I think they’ve done about everything they could do.”

Partisan Reactions

Matthew Ruff, a member of College Democrats of America, told the Register that he was “very surprised” to see the comparison between 2016 and 2020 polls and the newest survey.

“I would love to have seen Harris win that poll,” he said. "But I think it is still good for campus that it was very close and that there is diversity … you can challenge yourself here.”

On the night following the poll’s release, the College Republicans of Notre Dame hosted speaker James Bacon, who worked in the Trump White House as special assistant to the president and director of operations for presidential personnel. Bacon told the Register, “Polling results favoring a Republican on a major university campus would’ve been unthinkable just a few years ago. … The fact that has changed is evidence of a massive culturally rightward shift in America over the last four years.”

Will Donahue, a second-year law student and president of College Republicans of America, offered his perspective regarding the student shift since Biden was elected. In addition to the impact of mobilizing student groups on campus, he said, “They’ve seen four years of Biden and Kamala as the VP, and they’re done with it. It’s not surprising that there’s been a shift. The energy is completely different.”