Donald Trump shouldn’t bank on the collegiate vote in Philadelphia – students at his alma mater are largely supporting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania, endorsed Clinton on Oct. 20. Trump was graduated in 1968 from Penn after spending two years at Fordham University in New York. “Not to say that there aren’t [Trump] supporters on campus, but some people became concerned about how he’s representing the community,” said The Daily Pennsylvanian President Colin Henderson. “We aren’t trying to influence the result of the election but we are trying to represent the majority’s point of view as best we can.” Henderson and Isabel Kim, the newspaper’s opinion editor, said that the university’s administration has been quiet regarding their Clinton endorsement. They have received positive feedback from students about it, they said. A Penn alumni group did not return a request for comment about the endorsement.
Not only is Republican candidate Donald Trump a Penn alumnus, but three of his five children also attended Penn.
Students at the university’s Wharton School of Business recently drafted a letter of their own saying that Trump doesn’t accurately represent the school.
“Trump is kind of embarrassing,” said Kim. “From the beginning, students were leaning more towards Hillary, and there were a lot of Bernie supporters.”
Political endorsements aren’t unusual for the student newspaper. It endorsed Clinton during the primary elections. Kim said that the paper typically endorses politicians during presidential elections. The Daily Pennsylvanian endorsement stated that Trump demonstrated an “inability to actually articulate a coherent policy agenda beyond generalized, sometimes implausible or illegal,suggestions.” It went on to say Trump is uniformed on domestic and foreign policy. Newspapers from Temple and Drexel universities did not formally endorse a presidential candidate, but did encourage students to vote on Tuesday.
In addition to endorsing Clinton, the Daily Pennsylvanian discouraged students from throwing away their votes on a third party candidate.
“No one is going to pay attention to a protest vote in this election,” said Kim. “If you have a vested interest in this country for the next four years, you do need to vote.”
“We were pretty firm in what we wanted to say,” said Henderson. “I think the differences between the two candidates have been made extremely clear.”
Students at Trump’s alma mater snub him
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