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Barack Obama and John McCain are the US presidential candidates of choice for America’s IT crowd, according to a survey of 600 of the nation’s techies. Although mostly Republican in their political stance, the sample of IT workers was split about who should be the next president, as the two candidates each won 28% of the vote. Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton won over just 13% of the sample, suggesting the former First Lady has some way to go to woo IT types - mostly young, educated and well-off voters. In line with recent voter intention polls in the US, the majority of IT workers said their top concern as they face elections in November was the state of America’s economy. The last time they went to the polls the war in Iraq dominated their vote, but today fewer than one in five IT workers say the same, making immigration almost as important an issue. “For the first time ever we have documented the size and political character of the IT workforce,” said Roger Cochetti, a director at CompTIA, which commissioned the poll. “It's clearly a large and well-off group of independent-minded voters, whose loyalty is up for grabs.” The surprising result of the poll was that, through their responses, IT workers emerged “as far more politically active” than most pundits had anticipated, Cochetti said. He pointed out that nearly one-third of the IT workers reached into their own pockets to support their candidate’s campaign, making them more likely to be an online donor than the general public. The vision and policies of the presidential hopefuls are the most important criterion that persuade IT workers who to vote for, followed at a distance by their personal experience or values. And in terms of their own agendas, IT workers appear quite the selfless voter – just one per cent of those polled said they support their candidate because of their interest in technology. "We've all seen the Presidential hopefuls stop in Silicon Valley, stumping for votes,” Cochetti said. “From the survey, we get an empirical sense why all that attention IT workers matter because they're bright, well-paid, and most importantly, they can swing their vote." Yet highlighting the steely single-mindedness of so-called 'geek' voters, just 9% of the IT sample said they hadn’t made up their mind who they would vote to be the next president. “[The] bottom line [is that] the IT worker voting block is here to stay,” Cochetti said. “They've made it so. Attention to that block won’t just end with the closing of the 2008 polls.” Mar 26, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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