Hoping to boost support among millennials, Jeb Bush’s team is announcing a political network for college students in support of his presidential bid, with 135 campus chapters already in place across 36 states.
The network, “Mission:Next Campus,” kicks off with the start of the school year and builds onto an existing program, “Mission:Next” that focuses on people under the age of 40 who want to help with fundraising and other campaign efforts. The initiative is run by Bush’s two sons, Jeb Bush, Jr. and Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who’ve been active on the campaign trail.
College-aged voters can be influential in early voting states like Iowa, which has more than 130,000 students at four-year colleges alone, according to the 2013 Iowa College and University Enrollment Report.
Rand Paul’s campaign recharged its “Students for Rand” effort last month to spur growth among a demographic that his campaign views as key for his viability in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Bush, like Paul, has repeatedly said he plans on campaigning at places where Republican candidates don’t traditionally go, like college campuses and minority communities. Later this month, he’ll attend University of Georgia vs. University of South Carolina football game in Athens, Georgia.
In a video accompanying the campaign’s college student rollout, Bush says that his campaign is trying to recruit teams on 450 campuses.
Bush, who came in third place at 9% among Republican voters in the latest CNN/ORC poll, is currently struggling to compete against anti-establishment candidates like real estate mogul Donald Trump and neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who’ve rocketed to the top based largely on their nontraditional resumes that lack experience in elected office.
In his town halls, voters — both young and old — frequently ask Bush about his position on rising college costs and student loan debt. Bush has argued for incentives that will encourage universities to make it easier for students to graduate in four years, and he’s in favor of putting more pressure on colleges to drive down costs.
And while he has sharp criticism for Obamacare, he has said he agrees with the law’s policy of allowing kids to stay on their parents’ health insurance until the age of 26, and the economic plan he released earlier this week would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to people under the age of 25.