[caption id=”attachment_148332″ align=”aligncenter” width=”4866″]Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., greets fans during a tailgate party before an NCAA college football game between Iowa and Iowa State, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2015, in Ames, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
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The Republican candidates barely touched on any education issues during the debate last night, however the candidates have acknowledged that college-aged voters are very influential to their campaigns, particularly in early-voting states, and several have strategies for recruiting young supporters behind the scenes.
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced last week that his campaign met and exceeded its goal of establishing 300 student groups in 30 days.
At a speech at Iowa State University on Friday, Paul made it clear that he considers college students to be “an integral part of his campaign,” the Des Moines Register reported.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced his own campus initiative last week, called Mission: Next Campus.
The mission, run by Bush’s two sons, has chapters on 135 college campuses, and is aiming to make that 450 campuses across the country.
Meanwhule, Sen. Ted Cruz has taken youth outreach to another level.
The latest effort from the Texas senator’s campaign has been targeting high school students.
The Teens for Ted, or “TFT 150” initiative has a goal of establishing 150 chapters on high school campuses by Dec. 30, and will specifically target 17- and 18-year-old students who will be able to vote in 2016.
“We are the first campaign on both sides of the aisle thus far in the 2016 election specifically targeting teenage voters,” CJ Pearson, the 13-year-old national chairman of Teens for Ted, told TheBlaze. “A reason why we have been one of the first campaigns to start engaging young people and targeting them and actively pursuing their support is because we believe we’re not going to fall victim to what Mitt Romney did in 2012. If Mitt Romney would have split the youth vote 50-50 in four battleground states, he would be the President of the United States right now.”
Cruz has a separate college outreach mission called Millennials for Cruz that has 25 college chapters.
Despite the efforts to organize on college campuses, the candidates haven’t said much about higher education reform.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been one of the only Republican candidates to address college affordability. He supports accrediting more low-cost universities, which would introduce more choice and competition to higher education. Rubio also supports the “Student Right to Know Before You Go Act,” which would require institutions to tell students how much they can expect to earn from their degree before they take out loans.
While Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders make affordable education one of their main campaign issues, Republicans may need to step up their game to compete for the youth vote.
