Central Coast millennials take on first GOP debate

All the 2016 presidential candidates have one thing in common, how to reach those elusive millennial voters.

NewsChannel 5 talked to the younger generation of potential voters at UC Santa Cruz to see whether or not they’re paying more attention to politics this time around. What we found is having a very vocal celebrity may be making a difference.

“Oh yeah. Definitely I am going to tune in to see what’s going on. But hopefully I’m praying to that it doesn’t work out for him,” student Liliana Lamadrid said.

Lamadrid is talking about real estate mogul Donald Trump. She said she doesn’t agree with all trumps had to say throughout his campaign about illegal immigrants.

“We have to stop illegal immigrants, we have to,” Trump said this at one of his campaigns.

“He just wants to get his name out in social media I don’t know if it’s actually going to work out because people know what his background is,” politics major Nagashree Setlur said.

2016 presidential candidates including Trump have upped their social media game and not that all millennials will like what they see.

“I even looked at his twitter account to see what he’s posting and I’m trying to get to understand him on some certain level but it’s just, I find no reason still to support him,” Lamadrid said.

Trump is leading the republican polls with Jeb Bush just behind. But not surprisingly, most students on campus are leaning the other way.

“It’s funny to see what he has to say but hopefully everyone’s level headed here and knows who to vote for who will actually do well for the country,” Setlur said.

“I think Hillary right now is my go to but we’ll see how the debates go,” Lamadrid said

Every student I’ve talked to today said they would consider watching the debate if they could find a website that’s streaming it live. That just goes to show that the candidates need to chase millennials are online.