Last September, Ben Carson was reported to be the most favorable Republican candidate among college students. Since then, the retired neurosurgeon’s numbers have plummeted with the demographic.
Carson’s decline with young voters over the past few months could be partially due to his reaction to student activism, and his overall lack of policy suggestions on issues relevant to millennials.
Towards the end of last year Carson called out student protestors at the University of Missouri and Yale for their “infantile behavior.” He criticized the idea of safe zones on campus, and denounced the protests as “anarchical and unconstitutional.”
He later made the confusing call to monitor speech on college campuses and take federal funding from those that allow “extreme political bias.”
Furthermore, Carson has been known for his closed-minded opinion on marriage equality, another turnoff for millennials from both parties.
Last month, an unidentified homosexual millennial confronted Carson after a town hall meeting in New York City, asking him, “Do you think I chose to be gay?”
Carson simply responded with, “That’s a long conversation.”
The confronter then accused Carson of being, “full of s**t” — a sentiment that many millennials and libertarians might agree with.
Young conservatives feel that other GOP candidates, like Marco Rubio, may be a better fit for them. Rubio’s youth and personal struggle with student debt help him identify with millennials more than some of the other candidates. As millennials continue to be crippled by their student loan debt, they want candidates who will offer solutions, and help future generations of students.
Several candidates, especially in the Democratic Party, have already developed detailed plans addressing this issue. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are even offering free public college, a proposition that sounds particularly appealing to students who are struggling to afford higher education.
Carson’s underdeveloped plan to make public colleges pay the interest on their students’ loans is too weak for more liberal voters, but too liberal for many young conservatives. This puts him in an unfortunate gray area, where he can slip through the cracks and fall behind other candidates who are targeting young voters.
Additionally, support for Carson is fading in the national polls, as many are concerned about his overall demeanor. Carson has not been one to attack rival GOP candidates; and, while noble, this practice may come across as laziness, or as someone who is not willing to fight for a spot in the White House.
Conservative voters “really want an outside candidate, [but] they want somebody want somebody who appears presidential…with a clear fire in their belly, and I think that’s where Carson is letting them down,” said Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray.
While Carson took fourth place among his fellow GOP candidates in the recent Iowa caucus, he received only 10 percent of the youth vote and just 9.3 percent of the overall vote.
