By Doug Livingston
Beacon Journal politics writer
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ persuasive speeches for Hillary Clinton on Saturday were a far cry from the massive, boisterous rallies he once held when campaigning for himself.
In the morning, he spoke to a couple hundred Clinton supporters at the University of Akron. They politely clapped while seated in a theater lobby.
He then zipped over to Kent State, where he stumped another 30 minutes for Clinton, his former primary rival. There, 1,000 fans packed in and around the three-point line on a basketball court.
At both stops, he drew cheers for his expected condemnation of crony capitalists and billionaires who “buy elections,” never mentioning the invite-only fundraiser Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, held the night before.
The Kent State crowd cheered as he labeled Donald Trump, Clinton’s Republican opponent, a racist and a bigot. Many wearing his former campaign slogans on their shirts whistled as Sanders urged them to “not stand on the sidelines” and show Clinton the enthusiasm they once showered on him.
A bleacher full of Clinton supporters served as a backdrop for cameras recording his speech.
His pitch for Clinton, at least among millennial voters, comes as polls show Trump closing the gap Clinton enjoyed after the conventions and young voters, who have the numbers to decide the election, are not enthralled by their choices.
On the issues, the majority of college-aged Ohioans favor Clinton, who was pushed by Sanders in the primary to adopt more robust plans to make college free, raise the minimum wage and provide health care for all.
But some in the crowd, who dutifully support their Democratic nominee, and others outside the gymnasium, who couldn’t bring themselves to go in, hinted at the persistent problem Clinton has with millennials, a voting block that could outnumber any other generation except that it is less likely to participate.
Old college try
In her bid for the White House Clinton has tasked Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who will be in Cleveland on Sunday, to appeal to Ohio’s youth vote.
This “Weekend of Action,” as the Clinton campaign called it, touched college campuses in Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland, Akron and Kent.
At KSU, many taper-jeaned attendees, including Matt Brand and his friend, Addie Gall, came to hear Sanders, who was their first choice. They’ve decided to support Clinton. But it’s the issues, not the candidate, that have won them over.
Brand, a fashion design major, is facing tens of thousands of dollars in student loans before he graduates. In the primary, he gravitated toward Sanders, who gathered enough votes and delegates to push the Democratic party and its nominee toward help on college debt.
Still, what concerns most voters about Clinton also has millennials skeptical.
“Honesty,” said Brand when asked why he had picked Sanders over Clinton in the primary. Brand sees Clinton as a career politician and Sanders as an unwavering advocate for what many young voters believe to be right.
“He’s been a longtime supporter of gay rights,” Brand said of something that Clinton has not always supported. “It’s about equality. And Bernie has been about that for a long, long time.”
Gall, a journalism major, explained that many of her friends feel the election is a forgone conclusion.
“I think there are a lot of millennials who don’t think their votes matter,” she said, noting how the polls, the pundits and the media seem to pick winners before young minds are made up.
Young issues
Sanders hit all the points that made his upstart candidacy as an outsider so successful with millennial voters.
He criticized Trump for denying that climate change is real and that humans have contributed to it.
He sounded the alarm against the one-tenth of one percent of Americans who have as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. They control politics and perpetuate income inequality, he said.
He promised that Clinton would appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who will protect LGBT and women’s reproductive rights, and overturn Citizens United, which lifted caps on political donations.
He told the crowd that Clinton would responsibly steer the country away from fossil fuels while retraining oil, gas and coal workers for new green-energy jobs.
And, making what he called “ultimately the most important” distinction between Trump and Clinton, he appealed to the multiculturalism and diversity that defines the country’s youngest generation.
“There have always been people standing up, sometimes dying, sometimes going to jail, sometimes getting beaten, who said that in America we will not be a racist, discriminatory society,” he said as the crowd waved “Love Trumps Hate” signs.
“The cornerstone of Donald Trump’s campaign is bigotry, is dividing us up,” he thundered.
Millennial breakdown
Millennials, ages 18 to 35, make up nearly a third of the electorate, according to the Pew Research Center. But their lack of interest in voting makes them less of a force in the upcoming election.
In a poll out last week by Next Gen Climate, a left-leaning environmental group founded by hedge fund manager and Clinton backer Tom Steyer, less than half of millennial respondents said they would “definitely” vote this presidential election. Those who might are twice as likely to punch their tickets for Clinton.
This is in line with other polling that show millennials embrace progressive views.
Next Gen Climate is using the polling to advise Democratic strategy in eight swing states, including Ohio. Driving turnout among the nation’s largest and least politically active generation is the goal.
When asked, 72 percent of likely millennial voters said, to some degree, Trump is racist. About the same percentages said they would be ashamed or scared if he were elected.
Trump’s approval ratings among likely young voters in the poll have dropped from 25 percent in July to 23 percent in August. Clinton’s net favorability, however, climbed from 35 to 44 percent from July to August — far from the 67 and 70 percent favorability ratings of President Barack Obama and Sanders, respectively.
Polling shows millennials are more cynical about institutions. They don’t trust a government they see rigged by career politicians like Clinton and corporate interests.
They also are more racially diverse than the generations before them. Nearly nine in 10 say diversity makes America stronger, a slogan Clinton has latched to her campaign.
Former ‘Berner’ stays out
As the event concluded, Gwen West stood outside the KSU rec center, explaining to a reporter that she had never seen Sanders speak.
“It was hard for me not to go in there,” she said as the crowd of Clinton converts and longtime supporters poured out.
West, 41, seeking a master’s degree at KSU, was once a “Berner,” having backed Sanders during the Democratic primary. His push for free college and single-payer health care would have benefited her now, and her four children in the future.
“I have a whole world of worrying about what life will be for them,” West said.
The Barberton woman would have liked to hear Sanders. But that was then. And, oddly enough, it was Sanders who told her to stop listening to him.
“He — in interviews more than once — has said that his version of Democracy demands that if he ever tells you who to vote for, you should not listen to him,” West said, subscribing to the purest form of Democracy Sanders has pitched: one person, one-vote; no undue influence; no coercion.
“I took that to heart,” she said, passing out a flier for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who is on the Ohio ballot along with Libertarian Gary Johnson.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug.