Notre Dame Students Flip to GOP For First Time in 12 Years as Trump Surges

Students at the University of Notre Dame said they favor Donald Trump over Kamala Harris in the election, marking the first time they have backed a Republican presidential candidate in years.
A survey of 705 students conducted by The Irish Rover, a Catholic student newspaper serving the university in Indiana, showed Trump leading the vice president by 47.6 percent to 45.9 percent.
The last time Notre Dame students backed a Republican presidential candidate was 12 years ago. In 2012, the students voted for Mitt Romney over then Democratic President Barack Obama in a mock election.
The poll also shows Trump has seen a strong surge in support from students at the Catholic university compared to previous years. In 2020, Joe Biden, who is Catholic, had the support of 66 percent of Notre Dame students, with Trump at 29 percent. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also beat Trump in a 2016 election poll by 59 percent to 24 percent.
On Monday, Trump said that Catholic Americans who plan on voting for Harris should “have their heads examined.” Trump’s Truth Social comments were in response to the vice president opting to skip the annual Al Smith charity dinner, which raises money for Catholic charities, to focus on campaigning.
Trump wrote: “It’s sad, but not surprising, that Kamala has decided not to attend. I don’t know what she has against our Catholic friends, but it must be a lot, because she certainly hasn’t been very nice to them, in fact, Catholics are literally being persecuted by this Administration.”
“Any Catholic that votes for Comrade Kamala Harris should have their head examined….” he added.
Trump has also made similar comments suggesting Jewish voters who planned on backing Harris in November need to have their “head examined.”
Professor David Campbell, Packey J. Dee professor of American democracy and director of the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative, told The Irish Rover the poll demonstrates the students are a “microcosm of the nation as a whole.”
“The student body is closely divided,” Campbell added. “As we head into the home stretch of this hotly contested presidential election, I hope that the students of Notre Dame can demonstrate to the country that it is possible to disagree politically, but do so agreeably.”
The University of Notre Dame survey also had Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 0.6 percent while Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver got the backing of 0.3 percent. Some 5.5 percent of students said they supported a candidate who was not included on the ballot.
The poll was conducted between September 15-18. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percent.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump and Harris campaign teams for comment via email.
The Irish Rover spoke to unnamed students who took part in the poll. Some expressed their dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris administration, with the economy named as a key reason.
“The last four years are why my family is on welfare,” one male voter who identified as Catholic said while explaining his vote for Trump.
Another student added, “Honestly, the economy really needs to improve from what Biden and Harris are doing because it is becoming very hard to live.”
The Catholic vote could prove decisive in the neck-and-neck race between Trump and Harris.
Roughly one quarter of the adult population in the so-called blue-wall battleground states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin is Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center. In Michigan, adult Catholics represent nearly 20 percent of the population.