During last night’s Fox News GOP Debate, the candidates were given the opportunity to field questions from popular YouTubers, all of which addressed issues important to young voters. However, if the Republican Party is looking to gain more millennial votes, it will need to continue to talk about these topics much more.
“Colleges, no matter where they are in the county, tend to be havens of liberalism,” said Erin Strek, a young Democrat now living in New York City. “Therefore I think that younger generations, particularly those who are college students or recent graduates, tend to live in bubbles or pockets of liberalism. Secondly, most younger people never witnessed the greatness of the GOP under Reagan, so all we have seen is the growing polarization and shift to the far right.”
It’s no secret that many misconceptions about Republicans exist — greedy, rich, racist, misogynistic, bigoted — especially amongst young people. While largely untrue, stereotypes do exist for a reason, and last night’s debate was a start to try to change some of these negative perceptions.
For example, Senator Rand Paul answered a question from a young veteran from Ferguson in which he displayed that he is perhaps the only GOP candidate who thinks that the War on Drugs has gone too far, recognizes that such a war disproportionately affects African-Americans, and calls for criminal justice reform.
“I’ve been to Ferguson. I’ve been trying to look for solutions to our criminal justice problem,” Paul said, indicating that he might be the lone Republican reaching out to hurting communities. “I think something has to change. I think it’s a big thing that our party needs to be part of, and I’ve been a leader in Congress on trying to bring about criminal justice reform.”
In addition, Jeb Bush challenged the argument that Republicans are Islamaphobic when he was asked a question by a young, Muslim YouTuber who was concerned about the anti-Muslim rhetoric she has been hearing from GOP frontrunner, Donald Trump.
“We should be a welcoming nation. Our identity is not based on race or ethnicity; it’s based on a set of shared values. That’s American citizenship,” he said, blasting Trump’s policy proposal to prevent Muslims from immigrating to the United States. “You can deal with the threat of terror and also recognize that this country should be aspirational.”
Still, only three questions were taken from the YouTube personalities, and the moderators spent little time asking the candidates about social issues. Even during the social issues segment, most questions centered on each candidate’s faith and how that drives his policies, something that millennials are increasingly caring less about.
“Both parties, but I feel particularly the Republicans, need to work on compromising more with people on the other side of the aisle to ensure that political progress is made,” Strek said after sharing that much of what has drawn her to the Democratic Party is not only their candidates’ positions on items such as women’s reproductive health, healthcare, gun laws, and equality — but also their willingness to discuss these topics more often than Republicans seem to do.
If we truly want to compete with Democrats in gaining the youth vote, the GOP needs to find a way to shed our stereotype (perhaps having Donald Trump sit out every debate is a good place to start). We can further do so by continuing to open up a dialogue on what matters most to young voters and by showcasing that the negative youth perception of Republicans is, while not totally unwarranted, generally misguided. Hopefully, last night’s debate was a step in that direction.
