Rand Paul is pinning his hopes on a historic turnout from college students on caucus night, in what may be his only chance to manage a surprise showing against other Republicans in Iowa.



The Kentucky senator’s goal is to get 10,000 college students across Iowa to support him on caucus night, roughly the same number of students who turned out for Barack Obama in the Democratic caucuses in 2009. In a rally with several hundred attendees at Drake University in Des Moines this week, Paul gave a rambling speech in which he compared Donald Trump to Gollum, a deranged antagonist from The Lord of the Rings, and compared himself to the heroes of the civil rights-era novel To Kill A Mockingbird – all part of his attempt to win young people.

But while some of the lines were new, Paul mostly offered the students libertarian meat and potatoes, such as a reticent foreign policy and criminal justice reform. The question is whether such fare could convince people to help him to a strong finish on caucus night.

Steve Grubbs, the Kentucky senator’s chief strategist in Iowa, told the Guardian 10,000 students are an entirely possible outcome. He said there were 120,000 college students in the state and that all Paul needed was one in 12 to turn out. He was dismissive of Democratic senator Bernie Sanders’ sway over youth voters, which has grown around the country.

“Let’s say Bernie gets his one of out 12, great,” Grubbs said. “That still leaves 110,000 students to decide who they are voting for.”

He said that the campaign was doing much of its outreach via social media. “At a college level, it’s completely different [than] at an adult level,” Grubbs said. “All text, social, Instagram.”

He said there was “not a lot” of organized door-knocking around dormitories; the campaign was instead relying on “friend to friend” contact in what was part of a “very formal program”.

Paul is hoping college turnout will propel him back into the first tier of candidates. The Kentucky senator, once considered the most interesting man in politics, has been eclipsed by the rise of Donald Trump and the success of Ted Cruz in making inroads in Paul’s libertarian base. Paul has languished in national polls and is mired in sixth place in Iowa, a state his campaign once thought he could win.

Callista Coulter, the leader of a university group for Paul, said that the students’ goal was to turn out 1,500 students for him – on a campus of fewer than 5,000 people. She said she felt “very confident” that they had met that goal.

Coulter said her student group had several hundred members, about 100 of whom were active, “tabl[ing] around campus” and “holding a couple of events and socials”. Coulter said her group had “a pretty detailed strategy” to meet up at a central location on Monday and go to their caucus site.

Coulter was hesitant to speak in more detail, saying she required permission from the campaign to speak, despite her status as an unpaid volunteer. “I don’t know what I’m allowed to say,” she said. “I signed a couple of contracts.”

Yet for all of Coulter’s confidence, students didn’t seem to be into Paul’s message. Although the crowd was raucous at times, the cheers were often led by state volunteers. Claire Hueg, a freshman from Wisconsin at the rally, said she really loved Ron Paul, the senator’s father and a former congressman, in the last election. But she was 14 at the time and couldn’t vote.

This year she’s “not as a crazy as about Rand as I was about his dad”. Instead, she’ll be caucusing for Martin O’Malley.

Jut a few dozen feet from where Paul spoke, Megan Marsh and Bailey Matlock, two freshmen from Iowa, were studying for their world politics class. They said they were relatively apolitical. Marsh said she would caucus for Bernie Sanders and Matlock had no intention of caucusing for anyone.

The only real organization that the two had noticed on campus was one for Jeb Bush. Their observations of it echoed those of Hueg, who thought Bush had done “a really good job with internships for students”. But for the most part they weren’t seeing much going on.

All the two girls had noticed on campus “were some advertisements that don’t catch your eye”, Matlock said, and that some older girls in their sorority had posted articles about the race on social media. The light campaign presence was fine with them.

“That’s what I like about Drake,” Matlock said. “You’re not overwhelmed with people trying to convince you to caucus for someone you don’t want to.”