College-age millennials—around 78 million people between the ages of 18 and 34—may be credited with helping to give President Obama decisive backing in his 2008 and 2012 national election victories.
While some institutions are still in the early stages of opening their doors for the new school year, the absence of an Obama-like candidate and a widely held lack of excitement for the leading presidential candidates suggest tough going for all candidates in this year’s elections, even on many of the nation’s campuses where active voter registration campaigns are afoot, observers say.
Campus leaders at some schools say neither of the leading candidates—Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump—seem well-enough connected to issues of importance to college students, dampening general enthusiasm about the national elections and prompting some to focus on other important election issues and candidates.
“I feel like I’m walking on eggshells,” says Cristobal Rocha, president of the College Democrats at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. “It’s [the presidential race] become a hot topic,” debated on campus, in bars near the campus and most anywhere else, says Rocha.
“A lot of people are on both sides,” says Rocha of his peers at the 18,000-student, half-Hispanic institution.
“They are not my favorite,” says Nathalie Bravo Batista, a 20-year-old junior biology and chemistry major at North Carolina Central University, echoing students interviewed on nearly a dozen campuses across the country.
