College Republicans Offer GOP Advice For Winning Over Their Generation
During President Obama's State of the Union address this week, 14 members of the College Republicans at Ohio State University gathered in a meeting room at their student union on campus in Columbus, Ohio.
The president's speech, which they watched on a giant flat-screen TV, was punctuated with groans, rebuttal, criticisms and sarcasm from this young audience. These students worked hard, to no avail, to deliver the much prized battleground state of Ohio to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
Not only did the GOP lose the state in last year's presidential election, but it also faces a big challenge when appealing to young voters.
In the past two presidential elections, voters under 30 have gone big for Obama. Young voters are much more likely than their elders to identify as Democrats, to have positive views of government and to favor same-sex marriage.
Time For Change?
NPR attended the students' viewing of the State of the Union address, opening up a conversation by asking if they think the Republican Party needs to change.
"I don't want us to panic," Drew Stroemple, a political science and economics major, said. "We do need serious changes in terms of the way we reach out to different demographics and in terms of the way we message.
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