With less than two months until the presidential election, many students are thinking about the candidates and the ideas supported by each candidate. But what if the candidates’ names were removed from the equation. Would student voters still support the candidates’ platforms?
Milligan students were chosen at random to take part in a survey about the presidential candidates. Statements from the official websites of Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein and Donald Trump were given to each participant. Students were told to select the statement they most agree with in four categories: education, immigration, foreign policy and environment
Sophomore Kelly Sosa discovered that she agreed more with the third party, favoring Stein’s platform on both foreign policy and environment and Gary Johnson’s platform on immigration and education.
Sosa supports the idea of creating jobs and bettering the environment, at the same time. “It’s really a two-for-one deal that sounds pretty good to me,” Sosa added.
Green Party candidate Stein is known for her environmental-friendly platform, one of her goals being to “create 20 million jobs by transitioning to 100 percent clean renewable energy by 2030.”
Sosa had not heard of Stein or Johnson before taking the survey, but hopes to do more research on both candidates before the election.”
“I didn’t really know voting third party was an option,” she said. “Now I guess I’ll have to Google them to find out more about them.
Other students, like Freshman Caleb Pennington, took the survey and were surprised with the candidates they agreed with.
“I didn’t know I agreed with Hillary on anything, so this is surprising,” Pennington said. “I am, probably not going to vote for her, but some of her policies are not too bad.”
Pennington agreed with Clinton’s stance on the issues of immigration and the environment, but he leaned toward Johnson on the topic of foreign policy and Trump on the topic of education.
“I like the idea of creating an easier pathway to citizenship for families,” he said. “Also, non-renewable energy sources are a problem. We could run out of resources soon and it is important to make new advances.”
Sophomore Karen Barcenas learned that she favors Gary Johnson’s platform on both foreign policy and education.
“Sending troops overseas shouldn’t be something that is taken lightly,” Barcenas said. “Other candidates want to increase our fighting overseas, but this candidate wants to send out soldiers out only when necessary.”
Barcenas was not alone in her support of this idea. Freshman Trey Rice also agreed with this platform. Rice agrees with Johnson’s stance of repairing United States relations with our allies.
“The way I see modern America is a country wanting to do good,” Rice said. “We want to do good, but we need Allies, because we can not do this on our own.”
Rice agreed with Johnson’s platform on the topics of foreign policy, immigration and education.
He said the results of this survey don’t surprise him. Rice has been researching each candidate and is currently leaning toward Johnson.
“I think if he makes it, I will vote for him,” Rice said. “ I mostly agree with him, not 100 percent but I don’t think there is a candidate I agree with 100 percent. So right now, I am leaning more toward Gary.”
Johnson is known for his stance against Common Core, but Barcenas said she noticed he does not mention free college tuition, like the other candidates do.
Stein is fighting for tuition-free education from preschool to college. Clinton is known for her belief that all students should have the option to graduate from a public college or university in their state without taking on student debt.
While some view free tuition as positive, Barcenas believes removing the cost completely may only cause more problems.
“Making colleges free of tuition might help college students not have debt, but it could put taxpayers in debt, which would not be a good thing.” she said.
Contrary to Barcenas, Jesselle Blanco favors Clinton’s idea on education and thinks that free college tuition could be beneficial.
“Being in debt after college is a struggle and finding a job after school with a large debt is also really hard,” said Blanco. “If tuition was made free for college students or even more affordable that would really help.”
Blanco’s survey also revealed that she agrees with Clinton’s stance on both foreign policy and immigration.
“I don’t think it should be easy,” she said referring to Johnson’s stance on immigration.
According to Johnson’s website, the candidate wants to “make it simpler and more efficient to enter the United States legally.”
Blanco said citizenship shouldn’t be easy, but rather a process in which individuals are treated respect
“They should consider families and be considerate of bringing families together,”
Blanco said she also agrees with Clinton’s platform of focusing on deporting those who pose as a threat to public safety.
Echoing Blanco, Barcenas said public safety is very important to her.
“I was born on the border and I am very aware of the violence in Mexico with drugs and the drug cartel,” Barcenas said. “Even though we would like to think that everyone is good, they are not and we need to focus on the well being and safety of our citizens first.”
Barcenas learned that she agreed with Trump on the topic of immigration, but she said she plans on researching each candidate before the election in order to make a well-informed decision.