charlottesville, va.<u+2014>in a busy corridor in nau hall, university of virginia sophomore athena post sat after class and lamented her 2016 presidential options. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m just very disappointed with the two major party candidates,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>i think the election is a symbol of everything that is wrong with politics.<u+201d> she is planning to vote for democrat hillary clinton in november, but she senses a lack of interest among many of her friends, even after the avalanche of allegations about republican donald trump <u+2019>s behavior toward women in the past few weeks. <u+201c>that hasn<u+2019>t necessarily led people to in turn support clinton,<u+201d><u+00a0>she said. <u+201c>some students don<u+2019>t feel the need or motivation<u+00a0>to vote, because neither candidate is appealing to them.<u+201d> for mrs. clinton, who leads in national and battleground-state polls, that attitude could be a problem come november. in the last two presidential campaigns, this city and its large university have reliably produced a cache of democratic votes and enthusiasm. student interest soared in president barack obama campaigns, which he won here by more than 50 points in 2008 and 2012. the number of voters registered and votes cast reached record levels. the 2016 race, however, doesn<u+2019>t seem to be generating those levels of excitement among the student population. in a new wall street journal/nbc news poll, only 54% of voters under age 35 rated themselves highly interested in the campaign, down from 60% in 2012 and well below the 72% of voters in the full electorate. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t see the enthusiasm we saw even in 2012, and certainly not the kind of enthusiasm we saw in 2008,<u+201d> said ken stroupe, director of the youth leadership initiative at the university<u+2019>s center for politics. mrs. clinton and mr. trump, he said, <u+201c>are from a different generation. it<u+2019>s almost like younger voters are borrowing their parent<u+2019>s car. that<u+2019>s nice, but not exciting.<u+201d> opinion polls suggest a low-energy vibe is manifesting itself on campuses around the country, particularly hurting mrs. clinton, who is struggling to get big margins from younger voters. in the new journal/nbc news poll, conducted oct. 10-13, mrs. clinton led mr. trump among 18- to 29-year-old likely voters by 13 percentage points, 43% to 30%. that<u+2019>s narrower than mr. obama<u+2019>s 23-point margin over gop nominee mitt romney with that age group in 2012. in 2012, mr. obama relied heavily on college towns in the battleground states he won. he captured the vote in 32 of 40 college-town counties in colorado, florida, iowa, michigan, new hampshire, ohio, pennsylvania, virginia and wisconsin, according to the county typology of the american communities project. in those counties, mr. obama captured 58% of the vote, compared with 52% in those states overall. daniel folsom, a third-year student and clinton supporter, believes the problem mrs. clinton faces is the implicit comparison with the current occupant of the white house. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s the obama factor. he<u+2019>s inspiring and a great speaker,<u+201d> mr. folsom said. <u+201c>not having a candidate like that is kind of jarring.<u+201d> and students have other options: libertarian gary johnson and the green party<u+2019>s jill stein are catching the eyes of many in the college set. in the latest journal/nbc news poll, those third-party candidates are doing much better among younger voters than with voters overall. mr. johnson and ms. stein draw 22% of likely voters ages 18 to 29. among voters overall, they draw only 9% support. john-louis michaud, a second-year student and clinton supporter, said he sees the power of the third-party vote in his conversations around campus. <u+201c>i have friends who say they would vote for a third term for obama, but they<u+2019>re not going to vote for hillary clinton. so they<u+2019>re voting for gary johnson,<u+201d> he said. the problems with campus enthusiasm aren<u+2019>t limited to democrats. mr. trump has divided the university of virginia college republicans, said turner labrie, director of communications and recruitment for the group. when college republicans held a vote this fall on whether they should endorse mr. trump, the result was a nail-biter<u+2014>a 67-63 tally in favor of the endorsement. last week, after the harassment allegations against mr. trump surfaced, the group voted a second time and chose to rescind its endorsement. <u+201c>given the narrow margin of the original vote, it<u+2019>s not shocking that the despicable and disturbing comments made by trump convinced some members to change their mind,<u+201d> mr. labrie said. he said those he knows who continue to support mr. trump do so more out of <u+201c>a general dislike of<u+00a0>clinton.<u+201d> still, if campus enthusiasm is down in november, mrs. clinton and democrats will likely take the bigger hit, given that younger voters skew democratic.
millennials aren<u+2019>t fired up by 2016 presidential campaign - wsj
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