Penn State College Republicans Won’t Endorse Trump

The Penn State College Republicans announced Thursday night that the group will not endorse GOP nominee Donald Trump.

Trump, whose brash demeanor has dominated national headlines over the election cycle, created a ripple within the Republican party, causing some of its notable figures to distance themselves from the candidate. The Penn State College Republicans became one of only a handful of chapters to announce a non-Trump endorsement.

The group brought the endorsement to a vote, only to have 72 percent of its membership oppose supporting Trump. The post cited a number of factors that played into the decision, namely Trump’s contentious policy platforms. One in particular was Trump’s consideration of killing those suspected to be associated with terrorists, saying it “doesn’t fall in line with Republican, American, or Penn State values.”

The decision echoes Trump’s lack of support among young voters. A recent poll has Trump coming in fourth among voters under 30 — behind Hillary Clinton and third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.

The Penn State chapter joins the Princeton College Republicans, the Penn College Republicans and the Harvard Republican Club as some of the notable chapters to decide against backing Trump.

Here’s the Facebook post in its entirety:

Dear Members and Alumni,

Since 1940, the members and the executive board of the Penn State College Republicans have always been prominent in discussions regarding Presidential nominees, campaign issues, and the future that the nominee would be pushing for the American people. The concern on whether to endorse Donald J. Trump as the Presidential nominee has been a convoluted subject for the past couple of months. So, after a majority decision between members and the executive board, we have ultimately decided that we will be forgoing an endorsement of him as the GOP Presidential nominee.

Our membership was given the chance to vote on whether they would support Donald Trump. We found that a vast majority of the membership, roughly 72%, was against having us support him. The reason as to why our membership chose to not endorse Donald Trump could be for a multitude of reasons that we did not test for, such as his comments regarding foreign policy, fiscal policy, or his rash commentary towards members of the public. His policy views, however, certainly must have had an impact on our membership’s view of his candidacy, otherwise there would not have been such a large percentage of the membership against endorsing him.

One such policy proposal may have been when Donald Trump stated that he would consider ordering the military to commit to killing the families and associates of suspected terrorists, this would be a policy that doesn’t fall in line with Republican, American, or Penn State values. Another might be the fact that he has consistently flipped his stances on nearly every topic, with the exception of his stance on forcing Mexico to build a wall that he says “they will pay for.” He has also taken a position of stating that President Obama founded a terrorist organization, ISIS, which there is no basis to even think that the President has done any such thing. Finally, we would be remiss to admit that the list of policy reasons as to why our membership may not support him is very likely to extend beyond just the few that were mentioned.

No matter what, our organization will be focusing our efforts to reclaim and maintain the Republican Party majority in the U.S. Senate, Congressional, State Executive, and State Legislative races. Conservative ideals must be defended from individuals who have tried to extinguish them in the past. Future generations depend on us to defend these principles so they may enjoy them as well.

We stand with our fellow College Republicans, such as Princeton College Republicans and Harvard Republican Club who have ultimately decided to not endorse Donald J. Trump as the Presidential Nominee. As the Harvard GOP stated, “The conservative movement in America should not and will not go quietly into the night,” and we wholeheartedly agree with them, and encourage fellow College Republicans to follow suit.

America has and always will be great, there is no need to change the principles our nation was founded upon, instead we should strive to protect them.

Sincerely,

The Penn State College Republicans Executive Board