Bennett Ragan defied his Republican parents when he registered as a Democrat in August 2015.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) was one politician who inspired Ragan’s decision to join the party, the 20-year-old UF political science junior said. Ragan first heard Nelson speak about five years ago when the senator came to his hometown of West Palm Beach. On Friday evening in Weil Hall, Ragan was excited to hear from Nelson again.
“I feel so lucky to have interacted with one of our senators,” Ragan said. “It means a lot to me personally that he cares enough to talk to young voters.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) also joined Nelson at UF, said UF College Democrats President Kristen Jackson, a 20-year-old UF civil engineering junior.
The senators met more than 60 students from UF College Democrats during the student group’s weekly phone bank, where volunteers called registered voters throughout Florida to remind them to vote and to talk about Democratic candidates.
“That’s like one-fiftieth of the most important people in the country in one room,” Jackson said. “There’s only a handful of people who are more important than the individuals in front of us right now.”
Nelson is no stranger to UF, he said. The current U.S. senator was the freshman class president when he was an undergraduate at UF before he transferred to Yale University.
Nelson told volunteers that the people who win elections make decisions that affect everyone.
“Elections have consequences,” Nelson said.
Nelson answered student questions on policy issues, such as immigration, migrant workers’ rights and women’s rights in the wake of the Kavanaugh-Ford hearings. Booker came in about 20 minutes after Nelson answered their questions.
“What’s going on in our country is more indicative of the people who aren’t participating than those who are,” Booker said to the crowd.
It is frustrating to Booker that more young people don’t turn up at the polls to vote because the country could be transformed in an election if they did, he said.
“Your whole job is to wake up the conscience of your community, to pull people out to vote,” Booker said.
Contact Gillian Sweeney at gsweeney@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @gilliangsweeney
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker joins Senator Bill Nelson at a UF College Democrats meeting on Oct. 19 at Weil Hall. Students asked them questions about policies and their thoughts on current issues in the Senate.
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Senator Bill Nelson meet with UF College Democrats at Weil Hall on Friday afternoon. Senator Booker took selfies and posted an Instagram story of the meeting with students yelling “Go Gators.”
