Young people tend not to engage much in the humdrum local politics that go into midterm elections. But what if it’s happening literally in their own backyard?
The tiny school of Randolph Macon College is serving as a petri dish to answer that question. In an odd twist of fate, two of its professors are facing off in a high-profile race to represent Virginia’s Richmond-area seventh district.
This U.S. House race has been a series of unlikely events. Economics professor Dave Brat stunned the political world this summer in his GOP primary by defeating incumbent House Majority leader Eric Cantor. Suddenly Randolph Macon found itself, as the school advertises, transformed into the “political center of the universe.”
And they’ve been making the most of it. In the culmination of much marketing and to-do, the college sponsored its very own debate Tuesday night between Brat and his Democratic opponent, sociology professor Jack Trammell.
Randolph Macon, home to about 1,300 students, is located in the sleepy town of Ashland, Virginia. It’s the sort of place where kindly people in pick-up trucks stop in the middle of the road to ask if you need anything; a campus where students hesitate to give directions to the Welcome Center because they’ve never seen anyone go in there before. Randolph Macon probably doesn’t have a lot of people to welcome most days.
But the night of the debate was livelier than most. Brat and Trammell signs were everywhere, and campaign and security staff buzzed about setting up for hours beforehand.
“We’ve just embraced this campus-wide, from a recruiting perspective,” said Anne Marie Lauranzon, who works on marketing and communications for Randolph Macon. The college was sponsoring nearly 70 prospective students to watch the debate streamed live on-campus. They’ve been encouraging students to revitalize their political organizations, and devoted an entire section of their website to the debate.
“We’re thrilled.”
They’ve also organized a town-hall following the debate for more “academic” analysis and discussion.
“That’s the kind of thing that’s been happening,” Lauranzon said. “This very healthy banter about politics is something that we don’t typically do on our campus.”
Students have been holding on-campus voter registration drives, and the political clubs are seeing booms in membership. Last year, the college’s Young Republicans group had shut down. This year, they’ve added 74 members and seen 40 people show up on a regular basis for meetings. The Young Democrats have seen growth as well, although more modest—they have 10 more members this year than in the past.
Talbot Weston, the president of the student body, said, “Definitely the entire campus has become a lot more politically aware. I know it happened to me, I was intrigued to read more about it, because it’s in the backyard—gotta know what’s going on.”
But she hadn’t come to any conclusions yet. “I don’t know. I think I’ll make more of a decision tonight.”
A lot of these newly-formed politicos are unsure of what their views are. “Most students who aren’t involved in politics to begin with, I wouldn’t say they have a full grasp of how many issues there are in an election,” observed sophomore P.J. Costello, a member of the Young Republicans and a volunteer who’s been phone banking for the Brat campaign.
Kethelyne Beauvais, a senior at Randolph Macon, is not involved in the political clubs at the school. She called the election “really exciting,” but said she wasn’t particularly enamored with Brat or Trammell just yet. She didn’t name anything specific that would sway her toward a candidate—“Just in general, I’ll see how they respond to questions, see if they’re bipartisan, not too one way.”
Most students seemed genuinely excited about the debate. Tickets to the auditorium sold out within minutes, so many were planning to watch a live screening in a nearby school building.
A biology student walking by the building that would soon host the town hall was even more dismissive. According to him, the political science and communications majors are excited by all this—everyone else, not so much. He supposed it’s a “cool thing” to happen to the school, but it isn’t rousing his interest in political philosophy.
At 7:30 p.m., it was time for the professors to take the stage in the small school auditorium, crammed with media cameras in the back. Brat and Trammell were polite, with the occasional small firework, like when Brat suggested Trammell needs to write an ethics paper after all his misleading campaign ads. They traded standard gibes and sound bytes about healthcare, immigration, Ebola, the economy. The most incensed person in the auditorium wasn’t even on the stage— libertarian candidate James Carr, whom the school wouldn’t allow in the debate.
“There was nothing unexpected,” he complained later, “Nothing spectacular, only the slight drollness of the event.” He wanted Brat and Trammell to boycott the school’s decision: “They both have said time and time again they want to stand up against their parties, and yet they can’t stand up against a small liberal arts college on the principle of inclusion which they both have touted?”
After the debate, the two students who were on the fence about the candidates—Beauvais and Weston—had made up their minds. Beauvais favored Trammell, because he talked about student loan debt. Although she thought both made good points, Weston prefered Brat, because he “spoke with confidence” and focused on what she considers the big issues, like debt and healthcare.
In the school commons, groups of students chatted about the debate, while others filed over to watch the town hall discussion. But after the media pack up and everyone goes home, will the political high last?
Senior J.D. Rackey, the president of the Young Democrats, was hopeful but skeptical. Although he’s seen a lot of interest in politics these past few weeks, “Most people I’ve talked to haven’t been focusing on issues all that much. They’re kind of still caught up in the ‘professors running for Congress’ PR-ness of it all.”
