MILWAUKEE — Xaviaer DuRousseau, a conservative media personality and influencer, is not the stereotypical Republican National Convention attendee.
A self-described “former BLM activist,” DuRousseau has 600,000 followers across social media platforms and is part of a group of young conservatives and content creators the Republican Party is relying on to engage young voters ahead of the presidential election.
“People are looking at influencers the way that they used to look at legacy media,” DeRousseau said. “Influences, athletes, models, rappers — voters are looking at public figures for better or worse.”
Trust in traditional media sources remains at an all-time low, and creators like DeRousseau have emerged as one in three adults under 30 regularly get their news from TikTok, according to Pew Research.
DeRousseau is also a member of the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council, a group that coaches the Republican Party on how to communicate with young voters.
“Not only do we now have a seat at the table, we have a suite at the RNC,” DuRousseau said from the Content Hub, a private room in the convention for over 70 conservative content creators invited by the RNC.
Not all young conservatives view the Youth Advisory Council as an effective organization to win over Gen Z voters. In January, several members of the Youth Advisory Council resigned, calling out the GOP’s failure to utilize TikTok and social media as effectively as the Democratic Party.
At the Democratic National Convention next month, left-wing social media influencers will similarly be credentialed for the first time.
DeRousseau knows first-hand the power of conservative social media content. He switched political parties in 2021 after watching videos from PragerU, a conservative digital media organization he now appears on.
He previously criticized the GOP for failing to reach young voters and people of color but told The Daily Cardinal the party is working to change their messaging.
“I've stated many times to Republicans that as we see this new generation come in, I want to see our rhetoric get better,” DeRousseau said. “It's great to be blunt. It's great to be direct. But we also need to humanize the way we speak sometimes and showcase more empathy.”
DeRousseau himself drew widespread controversy for inhumane messaging after tweeting a photo of himself wearing a shirt that said “Make Gaza Jewish Again” that PragerU CEO Marissa Streit told DeRousseau went too far, according to the Jewish Journal.
In battleground Wisconsin, the youth vote is vital
Young voters are as important as ever in national politics, according to Barry Burden, UW-Madison political science professor and Elections Research Center director. This is especially true for young voters in Wisconsin, including those at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“In Wisconsin, the youth vote can make the difference in terms of who wins the state, and Wisconsin is one of the battleground states that will decide the electoral college,” Burden told the Cardinal.
In the last two presidential elections, Wisconsin was decided by about 20,000 votes but only by 11,000 in the 2004 presidential election, which Burden noted is “less than the number of people at a UW volleyball game.”
Young voters have consistently supported Democratic politicians in national elections. Gen Z and Millennial voters supported President Joe Biden by 20 points in 2020. However, recent polls and the April 2 Democratic presidential primary signaled disconnect between youth voters and the Democratic Party.
Roughly one third of voters in 20 wards on or near the UW-Madison campus voted for the “uninstructed delegation” in the April 2 Democratic presidential primary in protest of Biden’s support for Israel, compared to 14.6% in Dane County and just 8.4% statewide.
If the election were held today Trump leads Biden by eight points among voters under 30, and these voters are least certain they were going to vote in November, according to the July New York Times and Siena College poll.
“The majority of early 20s voters are not enamored with Joe Biden but are also very unlikely to vote for Donald Trump,” Burden said. “But for 18- and 19-year-old voters, the memory of how good or bad times were under different presidents is open to being shaped.”
Servant Ventae Parrow Bey, a Black Milwaukee resident and student at Milwaukee Area Technical College, told the Cardinal neither party does enough to engage young voters and appeal to ordinary working class voters. Bey said he was considering supporting a third party candidate in November.
“Politicians only show up when they want to get a person's vote,” Bey said. “The general sense is that you are not seeing enough empathy for humans in general for us to get out and vote.”
Selena Walter, a student at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, said youth engagement is vital for the outcome of elections in her county.
“We had a difference of 15 votes in the last primary and lost two conservative seats,” Walter said. “All I could think about is the fact that if a couple handful of people from my college had changed their voting address or gotten out and voted, we could have kept the conservative seats.”
The GOP alters abortion stance but lacks cohesive vision
In a fall 2023 Harvard Youth Poll, young voters identified reproductive health care, as well as economic issues, as the most important political issues for the upcoming presidential election.
Burden said reproductive rights is a top issue for young Wisconsin voters in the wake of the U.S Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade’s constitutional abortion protections, which led to a massive loss in abortion access across the state.
Before the RNC, the GOP agreed to drop a national abortion ban from the party platform for the first time in 40 years.
DeRousseau said abortion is one of the issues that is “lose-lose” for Republicans and divides the party — they risk alienating either the religious base of the party or the majority of Americans who support access to abortion in all or most cases.
“As a Republican and conservative, I believe in small government. I personally think it's an overstep to tell women that they cannot get an abortion,” DeRousseau said. “That's why it's important to distinguish that the Republican Party is not a monolith.”
DeRousseau said many young Republicans and members of the Trump administration would similarly describe themselves as “ideologically pro-life, legislatively pro-choice.”
Students learn, but will students vote?
At a pub just a few blocks from the RNC, a group of young voters discussed student engagement and voting with the non-partisan organization Students Learn, Students Vote and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics (IOP).
The parallel Youth Vote Fest at the DNC already has more than five times the attendees registered, an organizer told the Cardinal.
Students identified immigration, inflation, drugs, crime, the economy and student debt as their main concerns for the upcoming election in interviews with the Cardinal and discussions during the seminars.
As a first-generation college student, Walter said inflation is a major issue she is concerned about. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation rates soared to levels not seen in 40 years.
Burden agreed that student loan debt, job salary, health care and house expenses are increasing concerns for young voters.
Whitley Yates, a speaker at the event and the director of diversity and engagement for the Indiana Republican Party, told attendees she fills a unique role in the GOP as the only diversity director for a state GOP across the nation.
Like DuRousseau, Yates plays a unique role in the GOP as their base shrinks in the electorate, posing a conundrum for a party looking to evolve and draw in new voter demographics while maintaining core conservative principles.
“At this RNC convention, I've been asked about seven or eight times what is the future of the Republican Party,” Yates said. “The truth is the future is whatever you want it to be because you are the creators, crafters and leaders that are going to decide the policies that progress the communities for generations to come.”
Marin Rosen is the city news editor for The Daily Cardinal and a second-year journalism student. Throughout her time at the Cardinal, she's written articles for city and state news. She is an intern at Channel 3000 News and runs the Badger Beat on Instagram and TikTok. Follow her on Twitter at @marin_rosen
Mary Bosch is the photo editor for The Daily Cardinal and a first year journalism student. She has covered multiple stories about university sustainability efforts, and has written for state and city news. Follow her on twitter: @Mary_Bosch6
Noe Goldhaber is the college news editor and former copy chief for The Daily Cardinal. She is a Statistics and Journalism major and has specialized on a wide range of campus topics including protests, campus labor, student housing, free speech and campus administration. She has done data analysis and visualization for the Cardinal on a number of stories. Follow her on Twitter at @noegoldhaber.
