While they’re still outnumbered by College Democrats, the College Republicans at Yale are working to expand their ranks on campus. They’re also staying active by volunteering time to various campaigns.

Diana Li and Andre Manuel of Yale Daily News have the story.

College Republicans look to expand

In preparation for the upcoming presidential and congressional elections, Republicans at Yale are looking to increase their presence and visibility on campus.

Support for Republican candidates at Yale has for years been marginalized by liberal attitudes on campus — while the Yale College Democrats, the official representative of the Democratic Party at Yale, has over 150 active members, the Yale College Republicans, the campus’s equivalent Repulican-supporting organization, has 30 to 40, said Alexander Crutchfield ’15, the latter group’s political director. Heather May ’13, a member of the Yale College Republicans, said the group has been strategizing ways it can most effectively leverage its smaller membership to support Republican political candidates and grow the organization this fall.

“If you come to Yale and you’re a Democrat, you can very easily plug into the Dems: They have all the connections, but there’s no such facilitating organization for Republicans wishing to do the same thing,” said Elizabeth Gray Henry ’14, current chairwoman for the Yale College Republicans. “Hopefully in the future, the Yale College Republicans will serve as that facilitating organization in the same way that the Yale Dems do.”

While Yale College Republicans have struggled in the past to establish themselves on campus, Crutchfield said the group wants to use enthusiasm for the election as a tool to build its presence on campus. In the weeks leading up to November, Crutchfield said members will volunteer for Conn. Senate candidate Linda McMahon’s campaign, travel to Massachusetts to canvass for Senate candidate Scott Brown and hold a phone bank for presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

He added that the tight-knit conservative community is an advantage for Republican activism.

“Being conservative more so than being liberal or a Democrat is much more a part of your identity,” Crutchfield said. “Therefore, when we get involved in these organizations, it’s not on a project-by-project basis, like the Yale Dems … it’s much more on a personal level. It’s about getting to know people who share similar identities as conservatives, and this identity-based way of doing politics intrinsically makes us a very close community.”

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