DWU study: More S.D. professors are Democrats

This is not really much of a surprisE to the Chief, although apparently most of the state had beliefs to the contrary. The margin is not as great as it is elsewhere around the country, but it’s still there.

A new study by a pair of Dakota Wesleyan University students indicates that there are more Democratic college professors in South Dakota than the state’s residents suspect.

Kelsey Miller and Sarah M. Duff, students in professor Don Simmons’ Leadership and Public Service Seminar class, used voter-registration records to determine the political affiliation of 403 full-time college professors from the education, political science, business and history departments at 10 institutions in the state.

Eighty-seven of the professors were not registered to vote. Among the remaining 316 who were registered, 49 percent were Democrats, 37 percent were Republicans and 14 percent were independent.

The data contradicts perceptions held by South Dakota residents, according to an earlier telephone poll conducted by DWU students. In that poll of 413 South Dakotans, 55 percent of respondents said they thought college professors in South Dakota were either “conservative” or “somewhat conservative.”

Caveat emptor.