As college students return to campus, President Barack Obama’s campaign will be there waiting for them.
Obama aides sees college campuses as fertile
ground for registering and recruiting some of the more than 15 million
young people who have become eligible to vote since the 2008 election.
As Republicans hold their party convention in Florida this week, the
president will make a personal appeal to college voters in three
university towns: Ames, Iowa; Fort Collins, Colo.; and Charlottesville,
Va.
Obama’s victory four years ago was propelled in
part by his overwhelming support among college-aged voters, and polls
show him leading Republican rival Mitt Romney with that group in this year’s race.
But the president faces an undeniable challenge as
he seeks to convince young people that he is the right steward for the
economy as they eye a shaky post-graduation job market.
Seeking to overcome that economic uncertainty,
Obama’s campus staffers and volunteers are touting the president’s
positions on social issues, like gay rights, that garner significant
support among young people. Obama has stressed his effort to freeze the
interest rates on new federal student loans, a pitch he personalizes by
reminding voters that he and the first lady were once buried under a
“mountain” of student loan debt after law school.
They also see a fresh opportunity to court students – and their parents – following Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan
as his running mate. Democrats say Ryan’s budget would cut funding for
Pell Grants, the federal need-based program for students, and Obama’s
campaign is running television advertisements in battleground states
trying to link Romney to that plan.
Campaigning last week at Capital University in
Ohio, Obama told students that Romney’s economic plan “makes one thing
clear: He does not think investing in your future is worth it. He
doesn’t think that’s a good investment. I do.”
Before departing on his two-day trip, Obama was to
deliver a statement on Tropical Storm Isaac from the White House.
Administration and campaign officials were monitoring the storm as it
barreled toward the Gulf Coast, but as of Tuesday morning, the president
still planned to proceed with his travels.
Obama was scheduled to speak Tuesday at Iowa State
University and Colorado State University. The University of Virginia
rejected his campaign’s request to hold an event on campus Wednesday,
saying it would cause the cancellation or disruption of classes on the
second day of the semester. The event was instead being held at an
off-campus pavilion in Charlottesville.
Romney’s campaign sees an opportunity to cut into
the president’s support among young people by pushing a three-pronged
economic argument focusing on the nation’s high unemployment rate, the
soaring cost of college and the national debt.
“These kids haven’t even entered the workforce and they already owe the government a bill for the debt Obama has rung up,” said Joshua Baca, the Romney campaign’s national coalitions director.
Obama campaign officials say the start of the new
school year is a particularly crucial time to ramp up college
registration and make sure those new voters get to the polls. In many of
the battleground states, about 50 percent of the college students
register to vote on campus after Labor Day, according to the campaign.
And even those who are already registered may need to change their
address or other personal details after moving to new dorms.
At the University of Dayton, Daniel Rajaiah
encourages his fellow Democrats to carry voter registration forms to
class, to parties and around campus in case they find someone who hasn’t
yet registered. Members of the College Democrats set up tables in the
middle of campus a few days a week to catch students walking to class or
to the cafeteria.
“Our game plan this fall is to hit voter
registration very hard,” said Rajaiah, who is president of the College
Democrats of Ohio.
Obama’s campaign said it registered 10,000 voters
on college campuses in Ohio last week and signed up 300 new volunteers
at colleges in Iowa.
Four years ago, Obama won two-thirds of the vote
among 18- to 29-year-olds, compared with just 32 percent for his
Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, according to exit polls.
An Associated Press-GfK poll released last week
showed Obama again holding a broad advantage among younger voters, with
54 percent of registered voters under 35 saying they would vote for
Obama and 38 percent backing Romney.
