By James Cirrone
University of Maryland students are fighting for their favorite Democratic candidates as the Nevada caucuses approach Saturday.
One thing is clear: progressive policies have huge support and are massively popular with the college constituency.
Shepherd Caruso, a sophomore American studies major, is mainly concerned with how the next president will help college students like her.
“My preferred candidate is Bernie Sanders,” Caruso said, “I support a lot of his policies about college debt because I have college debt.”
While student loan debt may be an animating issue for college students, defeating Donald Trump is a main factor firing up Democrats across the country. An NBC news poll conducted before the Iowa caucuses showed that 61% of caucus-goers wanted a candidate who “can beat Donald Trump,” while 31% wanted a candidate who “agrees with you on major issues.”
Joy Callwood, a freshman government and politics major, likes Bernie Sanders and liked Kamala Harris before she had to drop out. But more than anything, Callwood’s priority is getting Trump out of office.
“I just feel like the best decision would probably be Joe Biden,” Callwood said, “I mean, yeah, he’s plain, but I feel like he’s the only one that could beat Trump just because everyone else is extremely liberal. And even though I’m extremely liberal, that’s not the rest of the country.”
University of Maryland students share their opinions on the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates around campus on Feb. 20. Students were asked about their favorite candidate to gauge who they will most likely vote for. Video by James Cirrone.
For a long time, Biden has been viewed as the most electable candidate, but with a large field, some are bound to disagree. Caruso happens to think that Sanders has the best shot.
“At this point, I think that he’s [Sanders] probably our best bet. But I also support his policies as well, so it’s like the perfect combination.”
Elizabeth Warren has also swayed hearts and minds at this university. Aaron Dixon, a sophomore biochemistry major, said he believes in Warren’s ability to push the United States toward becoming more of a social democracy, a system of government that has a strong social safety net for its citizens.
However, with Sanders’ recent rise in the polls and Biden’s precipitous decline, he made a prediction about where the race is going.
“It does look like Bernie is more likely to win the primaries,” Dixon said.
Despite this outlook, he thinks Warren’s plans are more concrete and believes she would be better equipped than Sanders to bring about leftward change.
Emma Gubman, a freshman public policy major, shares Dixon’s preference for Warren. She thinks Sanders’ age is too much of a risk, and that Warren has a “connection” with the people.
Connecting with voters and having policy plans are vital to presidential campaigns, but now that people have casted their votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, candidates are running out of time to make their case.
Adithya Solai’s favorite candidate was Andrew Yang, the entrepreneur-turned-presidential candidate who recently dropped out of the race after receiving no delegates in Iowa or New Hampshire.
“He got other candidates to talk about new ideas and not rehash the same things over and over,” the sophomore computer science major said.
When asked about Yang’s universal basic income plan, which would have guaranteed every American $1,000 a month, Solai praised him.
“No one is even putting forth anything close to that, so it was cool that he was courageous enough to just say that publicly and keep repeating it over and over,” he said.
After Yang’s exit from the race, Solai said he is now “pushing pretty hard for Bernie” to win the Democratic primary.
While Sanders, Warren, and even Biden got some support from UMD students, merely mentioning the name “Michael Bloomberg” drew some harsh opinions.
“I don’t like billionaires, I’ll be honest,” said Duran Aziz, a junior film and English double major.
Aziz supports Bernie Sanders and took issue with the policy record of the former mayor of New York.
“There’s a lot of reasons I don’t like him, mainly because of stop-and-frisk. That was a horrible time in the history of New York City.”
He also said he would vote for the eventual Democratic nominee, even if it ends up being Joe Biden. He went on to say that he was “sick of moderates.”
At the University of Maryland, there are diverse opinions about the 2020 Democratic primary, but the race is narrowing. The Maryland primary will be on April 28, and by then, UMD students will have to make their decisions.