In the wake of the mid-November Paris terrorist attacks, national security has been elevated to a top issue in the 2016 race for the White House.
A new poll from Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP) found that the majority of young voters support sending U.S. ground troops to defeat ISIS. 60 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds now support putting troops on the ground, when early fall polling showed America’s youth split over whether to send troops (48 percent supported the action and 48 percent opposed).
However, this shift in opinion has not yet swayed millennials’ top choices for President of the United States. The IOP poll found that young voters continue to support candidates like non-interventionist Democrat Bernie Sanders, and political outsider Republicans Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
Yet to win millennials’ support are GOP presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who have both been very outspoken, calling for a more aggressive approach to defeat ISIS.
Senator Ted Cruz, for instance, has taken an aggressive stance in his foreign policy rhetoric, vowing to “carpet bomb” the Islamic State into oblivion during a speech last Saturday in Iowa; however, Cruz does not support the bulk collection of phone records by U.S. intelligence agencies, and is extremely opposed to any and all budget increases, which could both be seen as national security weaknesses.
“Ted Cruz has repeatedly said that he supports overwhelming air power as necessary to defeat ISIS, but has not ruled out other options that are needed to protect the vital national security interests of the country,” said Alessandra Gennarelli, the National Chair of Millennials for Cruz. “Millennials support Ted Cruz’s thoughtful approach because it ensures Americans will be protected without getting the country unnecessarily stuck in conflicts abroad,” she added.
Senator Marco Rubio has promoted an active foreign policy agenda throughout the course of his campaign. He has offered a plan to fight ISIS that would expand military spending, and has attacked his fellow Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul for their unwillingness to increase spending and their votes to weaken intelligence programs with the USA Freedom Act.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s plan — which has received a great deal of backlash from both the left and the right — is to impose a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S., “until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses.”
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has taken a more hawkish approach to the threat than President Obama, advocating for a no-fly zone in Syria, more airstrikes, and more special operations troops to assist ground forces. Her opponent Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, wants to make intervention in the Middle East a last resort. He has suggested building a “global coalition” to eventually take on ISIS, but hasn’t offered many other details for this plan.
Despite their lack of foreign policy chops, young Democratic voters continue to prefer Sanders to Clinton, and young Republican voters continue to prefer Trump over all of the other GOP candidates. However, if the Harvard poll is accurate and national security remains a major issue, young voters may begin to gravitate towards candidates with more foreign policy expertise.
