For the first time in memory, Brigham Young University is boasting as many College Democrats as College Republicans. About 1,200 students have signed up for each of the activist groups sponsored by the Political Science Department.
In September, the Democrats had 700 students, but within the first few weeks of classes, membership had nearly doubled at the private school owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"Barack Obama is inspiring a lot of youth, and a lot [of the growth] has to do with the last eight years and people being vastly disappointed," said Randal Serr, a senior in political science and president of the club.
The club also has started getting more politically involved this year. Each weekend, a couple dozen BYU students load into cars and caravan to nearby battleground states such as Colorado and Nevada. They also write opinion articles for local newspapers, staff booths in the student union and participate in service projects.
They've come a long way from just 15 years ago, when the club had seven members, Serr said.
The College Republicans are providing ways for students to get involved in the John McCain campaign. They sent about 100 students last month to Colorado, about 30 to Las Vegas and a few to Oregon to knock on doors for McCain over weekends. Membership for the club has seen a slight uptick during this general election year, but it's stayed pretty steady over the years. BYU's College Republicans is the second-largest chapter in the nation, behind Ohio State University, according to Greg Skidmore, president of the BYU group. He doesn't point to McCain, though, as the igniting factor for most students.
"I've talked to more than a few students who are not as involved as they were when [Mitt] Romney was running," he said. "But we definitely saw a boost in interest when Sarah Palin was put on the ticket. In September we saw a huge influx after a lot of lackluster support."
But the vast majority of Utah County voters are still Republican or unaffiliated. Of the 254,000 registered voters there, 132,000 are Republican compared with just 12,000 Democrats, said Utah County Clerk-Auditor Bryan Thompson. About 105,000 are unaffiliated with 5,000 registering for a third party, he said.
However, in recent college campus voter registration drives, about 8 percent of students at Utah Valley University and BYU registered as Democrats, while about 5 percent of Utah County's general population did so.
"It's a small uptick in the younger population," Thompson said. "But it's not a significant trend by any means."
But seeing an increasing number of Obama supporters at BYU has College Democrats such as freshman Ian Hansen smiling. His family in Duluth, Minn., always has swung Democratic, he said, and he still catches surprised looks when fellow students see his Obama button on his backpack. But, according to what he hears from his older friends and family, "people are a little bit more open-minded to Democrats than in years past."
He said the national Democratic Party's position on such issues as gay marriage doesn't require him to compromise his morals and ideals because those issues mostly are dictated on a state level.
"For me, and most of the members of the College Democrats, we don't have to divorce ourselves form our values to be members of the Democratic Party," he said. "We take pride in what our religion teaches us, like helping the poor and doing charity work."
