Hopkins political groups react to Trump’s surge in the polls

By Catherine Palmer

News & Features Editor

Though Donald Trump has dominated the polls in the Republican presidential race over the summer and continues to surge, student political activists predict that his popularity will not last much longer.

Senior Nitin Nainani, the president of College Republicans, said he was not entirely surprised when Trump announced he was running.

“He probably thought this was a good opportunity to get more attention, which is what he largely aims for,” Nainani said. “And so, considering the nature of this very large field, I think that has a lot to do with why he declared this time as opposed to before... No one really understands why Donald Trump does what he does except for attention.”

Sophomore Jared Mayer, treasurer of the Hopkins chapter of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), agrees that Trump’s ego is a factor behind his decision to run.

“He is very much convinced that he is like a Messiah who has just landed on Earth who will bring about glory and utopia to the United States,” Mayer said.

Mayer did not expect Trump to be popular among voters.

“I thought he was going to be one of those marginal figures like Ralph Nader or someone of that sort... I didn’t think that he would really go anywhere,” Mayer said. “It’s a kind of weird and almost ironic position that Trump’s in because on the one hand he is polling the highest among Republicans, but he also has the greatest number of people — not sure if it’s just Republicans or people in general — who would not vote for him at all.”

Nainani believes Trump’s popularity is largely due to his celebrity.

Nainani believes Trump’s status as a non-politician is also helping him in the polls for now.

“A lot of the grassroots in the Republican Party are upset. They think that the political establishment, especially the Congressional Republicans have not delivered on their promises. And when they see Trump acting all brash, all acting like a strong man, they think that he’s willing to fight for them,” Nainani said. “I would guess that he in the actual primaries will not perform nearly as well as he’s polling simply because he doesn’t necessarily have the campaign team and enough of an infrastructure built in several of the early primary states.”

Senior Sam Gottuso, the president of College Democrats, thinks Trump could be a serious contender in the primaries.

“I think he will continue to remain popular so long as they aren’t really any challengers to him,” Gottuso said. “No one wants to adopt the rhetoric that he’s adopted... And I think that appeals to a lot of people, again because they’re kind of fed up by the career politicians. So I think he’ll carry a lot of momentum through the primaries, even win a state or two. I don’t think that he will win the nomination, though.”

However, Gottuso believes if Trump runs as a third party candidate he could threaten the Republican nominee’s chances.

“I think that he has a very different mindset from a lot of the other Republican candidates,” Gottuso said. “And so I think that if he split off you would see a split in the vote because the party right now is so fragmented and so diverse that it really shows that maybe the party as a whole needs to undergo a little bit of a change to find it’s base again.”

Nainani was quick to point out the complications of running an independent campaign.

“Running as a third party is much more difficult than people would expect,” Nainani said. “Some states have what are called sore-loser laws, meaning if you run in the Republican primary and lose the primary, you are not able to appear on the ballot under another party’s label... Secondly, in order to get ballot access it would be a long and arduous process effort, which would take a lot of organization and planning.”

Mayer is concerned about the type of voters that Trump is attracting from within the Republican Party itself.

“He has really brought all the horrible, racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic elements out of the Republican Party from sort of the bottom of the barrel and brought them to the surface,” Mayer said.

Mayer said if it comes down to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the general election, he will vote for Clinton.

Gottuso thinks Trump may actually be helping the Clinton campaign in a way by garnering so much media attention.

“I think the more airtime that people focus on Trump and not on the email [scandal] is good for her because she kind of botched that one,” Gottuso said.

Trump is also unlikely to take away votes from Clinton or any other democratic candidate, according to Gottuso.

“I think that he’s gone a little bit too out onto the fringe. He’s said some very questionable things, been endorsed by some very questionable people,” Gottuso said. “And that’s not saying that the Republicans are supporting him because he’s endorsed by questionable people, but he’s running as a Republican so that’s kind of where he’s drawing his base from... To get some crossover, I think he would have to be more central and I don’t think he’s going to do that.”

Senior Christine McEvoy, a state chairman for College Republicans, believes it’s too early on to predict what will happen as the race continues.

“There’s still a large number of undecided voters in early primary states and even in late primary states, too, that might be up for grabs, so it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen next; which I think is a very good reason why students should be paying attention to what’s going on,” McEvoy said. “This race has been so competitive that I’ve started to see and will continue to see and hope students are going to be more engaged in what’s going on and really take their footing. Just whether or not you have an opinion on Donald Trump is a good start.”

Gottuso agrees that students should be informed about the Republican as well as the Democratic race regardless of their personal political beliefs.

“I am actually registered independent, so I’m kind of a big believer of getting as much information as you can from either side because I think it affects us all. And I think that Hopkins [students], despite its proximity to [Washington] D.C. and despite the fact that it has some of the smartest people in the country, are really politically apathetic,” Gottuso said. “And what they don’t understand is that this is going to affect jobs after you graduate. This is going to affect student loans. This is going to affect social issues that I think people really care about... Being an informed voter is probably the most important thing people can be in this country.”