On Tuesday, George and Amal Clooney pledged $500,000 toward the March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., on March 24. Later that day, Oprah Winfrey pledged, in a tweet, to match the Clooneys’ donation in support of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student-shooting survivors organizing the march. The students, who since the February 14 shooting have become vocal and highly visible advocates for gun control, have had a crash course in political messaging and media attention. And they’ve become savvy enough to realize that celebrity support might have a downside, too.

New York Times reporter Julie Turkewitz, who rode along on Tuesday with Marjory Stoneman Douglas students to Tallahassee, where they planned to call for an assault weapons ban at the Florida State House, took the mood from the students on the bus.

“Students on the bus are apprehensive about support from George Clooney,” Turkewitz wrote on Twitter, saying that some students feared the right would feel alienated by support from the left.

These teens were clearly reading the headlines during the 2016 election, when pundits suggested that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign was not helped by the many celebrity endorsements she received. Despite the increased calls for gun control and assault rifle bans in the days since the Parkland shooting, gun control remains a highly partisan issue—and as the president himself has made clear, Oprah in particular has a unique power to draw partisan lines.

When the students arrived in Tallahassee, they saw their efforts, at least in the short term, fail. A motion to ban assault weapons failed on Florida’s House floor with a party-line vote of 36 to 71. The Times reported an emotional scene for the frustrated students in the room. The House reportedly said it would “consider more modest proposals”—such as raising the age to purchase assault weapons—before the session ends in March.

“The House looks forward to working with the governor and Senate to find solutions to fulfill government’s primary mission—to keep its citizens—its children safe,” Richard Corcoran, the Republican Speaker of the House, said in a statement. “And it is our goal to give these collective solutions the serious review and consideration they deserve.”