For the past 76 years, Scholastic has conducted a mock election of schoolchildren through its Scholastic News magazine each election cycle. As it turns out, it's been a fairly accurate forecast of the actual, grown-up election held about a month after the "votes" are cast. Since 1964, the Scholastic News election has correctly predicted the winner of the presidential election--and this year, they're forecasting a major Hillary Clinton victory.
After the 153,000 ballots were tallied, Clinton emerged victorious over Donald Trump, by a result of 52 percent to 35 percent. If the election were real, Clinton would have won 436 electoral votes and Trump would have won a mere 99.
In an usual quirk of this year's mock election, the "Other" section of the ballot won 13 percent of the vote, and also "won" the District of Columbia's three electoral votes. In past elections, "other" has never garnered more than five percent of the vote.
The Democratic former first lady and U.S. senator garnered 52% to Republican real estate developer Donald Trump’s 35%. In all, Clinton, who is surging in the grown-up polls, carried enough states to win an eye-popping 436 electoral votes to Trump's 99.
Clinton needs just 270 electoral votes to win, and the poll-tracking website fivethirtyeight.com on Monday put her total as high as 345 electoral votes.
Among schoolchildren, Clinton carried nearly every battleground state: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Ohio. She also carried Alaska, Idaho, Texas and Utah, all traditionally red states.
Given that the mock election is essentially a straw poll of the students' parents, perhaps it's not as ridiculous a metric as it sounds. In other states, these mock elections have perfect, or nearly perfect, records as well.
Clinton also "won" the "Redskin Rule" as well when the Redskins defeated the Eagles this past weekend.
