The three surging anti-establishment candidates in the Republican presidential primary field all have the most establishment of post-secondary educations.
A Fox News poll released Sunday showed three of the most anti-establishment candidates in the GOP field on top. Political novices Donald Trump and Ben Carson took the top two spots, with 25 percent support and 12 percent support, respectively. In third place was Ted Cruz, who while a sitting U.S. senator, has successfully marketed himself as an anti-establishment superman by becoming perhaps the most hated man in the Senate among his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
But as political strategist Stuart Stevens noted on Twitter, these three purported outsiders are three of the five candidates in the Republican primary field to have attended Ivy League institutions, the grooming grounds of the establishment that are often looked upon suspiciously by grassroots Republicans.
I get we're calling the top 3 in Fox poll "anti-estabishment" but that has to be a first for trio of Ivy League businessman, doctor, lawyer.
— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) August 17, 2015
Trump, humble as he is, regularly mentions in his speeches that he attended the Wharton School of Business at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson attended Ivy League Yale College to earn his bachelor’s degree, before attending the non-Ivy League University of Michigan for medical school. And Sen. Ted Cruz boasts two Ivy League degrees — a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a law degree from Harvard University.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former New York Gov. George Pataki are the only other Republican presidential contenders to attend an Ivy League school. While Jindal fashions himself as something of an anti-establishment figure, he is barely registering in the polls.
Carly Fiorina, another anti-establishment Republican contender surging in several polls after the first Republican debate, didn’t attend an official Ivy League institution, but did attend the very establishment-friendly Stanford University for her undergraduate degree and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a master’s degree in management.
Of the 2016 Republican presidential contenders, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich most often get tagged with the “establishment” label, but none of them attended particularly establishment (see “super elite”) colleges. Bush attended the University of Texas at Austin while Kasich attended The Ohio State University. Christie earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware and his law degree Seton Hall University.
But perhaps the most anti-establishment education of all the candidates comes from a contender who is perceived by some to straddle the anti-establishment/establishment line: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Walker attended Marquette University, but he dropped out in 1990, 34 credits short of what he needed to graduate.