Indiana and North Carolina will hold their primaries tomorrow, and Sen. Hillary Clinton seems to be closing the gap with frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama. But there is one voting group that Obama still has a commanding majority of support from: students.

A national poll conducted by Harvard University found that 18- to 24-year-olds prefer Obama to Clinton 70 percent to 30 percent.

Political science professor Matt Barreto attributes this to Obama’s message.

“Obama has brought students in with his message of unity,” Barreto said. “Every individual can participate, and this appeals to young people.”

Barreto went on to say that Obama shares students’ optimism about change and that Clinton’s claims of having more experience matters more to older generations.

“Obama has a youthful spirit and relates to many young voters,” Barreto said.

Christine Di Stefano, director of the UW Center for Women & Democracy, holds that students have less to lose with systemic change than older voters. They are therefore more likely to support a politician like Obama.

The difference in Obama’s and Clinton’s sex, however, was not a reason for students’ aligning with Obama.

“Student partiality toward Obama cannot be interpreted as a preference for a male candidate,” she said.

Di Stefano also acknowledged that issues of gender and race are still alive in this campaign, but these issues do not resonate with young voters. Students came of age during a time when gender and race didn’t matter as much as when older generations grew up, she said.

“There is a huge generational divide over these issues,” Barreto said. “Younger people are more open to tolerance because they grew up in a more multicultural and diverse society.”

This is evidenced by the recent controversy concerning Jeremiah Wright’s, Obama’s ex-pastor, radical remarks. His perceived anti-American sermons were ill received among many voters, causing his support to lessen during April. This drop-off, however, was not observed among students.

Communication professor David Domke is in Indiana with a group of UW students. The students’ reports of past primaries have not focused on issues of race, Domke said, but have rather been centered on things like job loss.

The Harvard poll cited that the economy has emerged as the dominating issue in the nomination process.

In a state like Indiana, with its faltering economy, students may join with older generations in supporting Clinton, who has won in states with similar woes, like Ohio and Pennsylvania.