Dominick Kavanaugh, the LSU chairman for the Donald Trump campaign, is sweating through a sticky September afternoon outside the LSU Student Union. Tigers for Trump volunteers are handing out campaign swag and helping fellow students register to vote, hoping they’ll back the New York real estate mogul and celebrity who is perhaps the most unconventional major-party presidential candidate in recent U.S. history.
Some of the students trudging through Free Speech Alley ignore the smiling Tigers for Trump volunteers. One student says “Go Hillary!” Another declines an offered campaign sticker while protesting that “people already peg me as a Trump guy.”
But quite a few are supportive, although some are disappointed when the group runs out of free T-shirts. One passerby muses that pretty much everybody here backs Trump, except maybe those “weird” liberal arts majors.
For Kavanaugh, an engineering major from Indiana, politics has been a hobby since middle school. He made phone calls and went door to door for John McCain, who ran for president when Kavanaugh was in seventh grade.
Kavanaugh was one of the first Trump supporters among active LSU Republicans. But now that some former Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio backers are on board, the Tigers for Trump mailing list has 75 or so names.
Today, Kavanaugh says, Trump is closing the gap with Hillary Clinton and even leading in some national polls.
“A lot of people just believe that he speaks the truth,” he says. “He’s something America needs right now. He’s not the typical politician.”
While Trump’s chances of winning are high in deep-red Louisiana, state Republicans are hoping for a blowout. An enthusiastic Trump-driven turnout could boost GOP candidates up and down the ballot.
If he wins the state by 10 points or less, that would be good news for Louisiana Democrats, says Baton Rouge political consultant and pollster Bernie Pinsonat. But a 20-point margin might indicate a big night for the Louisiana GOP.
Campaigns save most of their resources for the battleground states. But Trump is the first Republican presidential candidate in recent memory to hire a paid campaign leader in Louisiana, says state party executive director Jason Doré.
Ryan Lambert, Trump’s Louisiana state director, is a South Carolina native who moved to Baton Rouge to work on Garrett Graves’ successful run for Congress in 2014. He says he’s leveraging Trump fans in Louisiana to help his counterparts in the swing states.
“I think it’s a testament to how many people really love Mr. Trump,” Lambert says, “and are willing to jump on and make phone calls and go over to Florida for a weekend and really help.”
Victoria Chustz, a 22-year-old LSU student studying marketing, political science and business, hands out campaign stickers for Tigers for Trump. Photo by Collin Richie.
Polls show that Louisiana is one of Trump’s strongest states, says Mike Henderson, director of LSU’s Public Policy Research Lab. But nationally, Trump’s high negatives among Hispanic-Americans and young people could hurt the GOP in future elections, Henderson says. A voter’s first few elections often establish a pattern, so a young person who is anti-Trump today is less likely to vote Republican next time.
Which brings us back to Tigers for Trump, who are trying to steer a few more young voters in Trump’s direction. Victoria Chustz, who studies marketing, political science and business administration, says Trump’s purported racism is the most common concern expressed to her by other students. Chustz, whose mother is from Italy, stresses to those students that Trump doesn’t hate immigrants; he’s just opposed to illegal immigration.
She says Trump will do better with young voters if he tones down his rhetoric.
“In the beginning, I think he came off as very angry,” she says. “Our generation is very sensitive.”
R.J. Rokosz, an international trade and finance major, tries to refute accusations that Trump is sexist and racist. Trump employs a high percentage of women and minorities through his companies, Rokosz says. He adds that Trump’s September visit to a black church in Detroit showed the candidate reaching out beyond his base.
“My parents live in Detroit,” he says. “They were shocked at how receptive a lot of the people in Detroit were. You’re not going to change someone’s views overnight. But a lot of people were very receptive and listening, instead of immediately just ruling him out.”
This story was originally published in the October issue of 225 Magazine.
