Even though the next presidential election is over a year away, and there are still four months until the Iowa caucus, more and more Northeastern students are getting involved in advocacy in discussions in response to the Democratic debates and campaigns. 

There are six major student-created Democratic campaign organizations at Northeastern: Huskies for Bernie, Northeastern for Warren, Northeastern for Joe Biden, Northeastern University Students for Beto, Northeastern University for Kamala and Northeastern for Pete. Most of these groups said they started gaining support around the recent September debate.

Ryan Costa, a second-year politics, philosophy and economics combined major and the head of Huskies for Bernie, said over 20 people showed up to their first meeting, and they now have about 150 people on their email list. 

Part of the reason so many young people are supporting Sanders, Costa said, is despite being “one of the hardest demographics to reach… [Sanders] really brings them into the political process.” A Harvard poll conducted this spring found that 31 percent of likely voters between 18 and 29 support Sanders for the Democratic nomination. 

Costa said he was disappointed by the recent debate. While he thought “Bernie really brought the fire,” he believes the moderators should have asked Sanders more questions. He also said he wanted to hear more about corruption and income inequality.  

Sophie Bailey, a first-year chemical engineering major and member of the College Democrats, was less disappointed by the debate. Bailey first said it was funny to watch the candidates get “snippy” with each other, but also said the debate “revealed important differences in their policy ideas.” 

Matt Lowe, a third-year computer science and business administration combined major and vice president of the Northeastern College Republicans, laughed when asked about the debate before saying that the candidates were all pushing each other further left. 

“I think it’s very dangerous, if they want to win.” Lowe said. “There’s a lot of America, I think, more than people realize, who just want someone in the middle.”

Lowe said he believes “the only person who has a chance at beating Trump is Biden.”  He views Biden as a “safer choice” than the other Democratic candidates. 

Lowe said he isn’t a party-line voter and hasn’t yet chosen who he’ll vote for, but he wouldn’t consider voting for the three leading Democrats: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

Jackson Hurley, a second-year political science major, intern for Joe Biden’s campaign and co-founder of the recently formed Northeastern for Joe Biden organization, ultimately agreed with Lowe that Biden has the best chance of beating Trump. 

“Biden is way more progressive than Obama,” Hurley said, referring to Biden’s healthcare plan. Hurley said he believes Biden’s policy points are more pragmatic and realistic than some of the other candidates. 

As much as he supports Biden, though, Hurley said he will be fighting for whomever is chosen as the Democratic nominee.

Josh Roller, a fourth-year political science and economics combined major and a member of the College Democrats, said he is unsure how many people have those same plans. 

Roller said he is “around 70 percent” optimistic that a Democrat will be elected president in 2020. “If we crowd the Democratic field and cause all these divisions,” he said, Democratic voters won’t be united and will lose to Trump.

Emerson Toomey, a second-year political science major and communications director for Northeastern for Warren, which had between 10 and 15 members at their first meeting, echoed Roller’s concern that Democrats will fail to get their nominee elected in 2020.

“I think that people are not putting as much urgency on the matter as there needs to be. I think that Trump actually stands a really good chance of being re-elected. And I think that people don’t want to think about it,” Toomey said. 

Trump has negatively affected everyone, Toomey said, so she hopes people will get involved or “do the very least and vote.”

Not all students have chosen to get involved with campaigns on campus. Many are still unsure which candidate would make the best president. 

Mirza Ahmed, a first-year data science major and international student from Bangladesh, said he has been negatively affected by Trump and faced a lot of problems with his visa for no apparent reason, even though he had visited the United States before. He said he isn’t sure which candidate will be best, but said Kamala Harris might be good if she can do what she promised.

“Hopefully the person who comes will actually bring good, positive changes. Maybe [they’ll] actually care about conditions like climate change and other things that are important, and will be fair to other countries,” Ahmed said.

Alexis Jennings, a first-year health sciences major, said she thinks Trump could win again, depending on who wins the Democratic primaries. 

Jennings said she is reluctant to guess who will win the election. “I thought Hillary [Clinton] was gonna win and then she just didn’t … I don’t want to jinx it.”