Director of Clinton North Carolina campaign Troy Clair notes role of youth in 2016 election

Troy Clair, Trinity ’03, pursued a political science major and history minor while at Duke. After leaving, he worked as chief of staff for North Carolina representative G.K. Butterfield and is now the North Carolina director at Hillary for America. The Chronicle’s Jaime Gordon spoke with Clair about his experience at Duke, the nuances of Clinton’s campaign and North Carolina politics. 

The Chronicle: What makes North Carolina a unique and important state in elections?

Troy Clair: North Carolina is definitely what we call a battleground state. Both parties—Republicans and Democrats—will visit and vigorously contest the state. President Obama won the state in 2008 and narrowly lost the state in 2012. 

I think that North Carolinians are looking for a new direction with what’s going on with the Republican leadership in state. Secretary Clinton has the kind of vision that folks in North Carolina would be attracted to. A recent article in The New York Times said that we will be the closest of the battleground states across the country. That’s how North Carolina is. We have a lot of great people and a lot of diverse backgrounds. It will be a very close and competitive state.

The Chronicle: What role do North Carolina’s many universities play in the election?

Troy Clair: Young people are critical to the success of any campaign or any movement. We’ve got folks across the state who will be organizers. That’s greatly fueled by young people who will be going across the state door-to-door encouraging people to vote, registering people to vote and making phone calls encouraging people to get involved in the process. 

Young people will be critical in this election. I think that Secretary Clinton’s plan for improving the economy, making college more affordable and really creating a society where we all work together will be attractive to the young people on all the campuses across the state.

The Chronicle: Could you tell me a little bit more about Secretary Clinton’s education policy?

Troy Clair: The main theme of [Clinton’s New College Compact] is if folks want to get an education, that it should not bankrupt them or their family, that college should be in reach for every American, that the cost of college should not keep people from going to school and getting an education and bettering themselves and their families. The second principle is that if you’re able to get the money to go to college and you have to borrow money, you should not be in so much debt that it prevents you from buying a house or starting a business. The interest rates you pay should not be immensely high. We don’t want young people who are recent graduates to not only hurt themselves economically, but hurt the country economically because they can’t invest.

This is personal for me because when I attended Duke, my parents were not—and still are not—wealthy. I had to take out student loans, and I was on work study. This is very personal to me to make sure that folks like myself from an urban neighborhood in New York are able to come to a great university like Duke. 

The Chronicle: What does a typical day look like for you in your current position?

Troy Clair: Crazy! Right now, we’re in what we call the building phase. Part of that includes reaching out to people across the state, reaching out to those I don’t already know, and getting people’s thoughts on how things are going in North Carolina. The other part is building community by meeting with and talking to people who will join our staff. The third part is infrastructure building, which involves finding office space and getting furniture.

The Chronicle: Do you think that your time at Duke prepared you well for your career?

Troy Clair: Absolutely. One of the reasons why I chose to go to Duke was because I loved the opportunity to get involved with student organizations. I got involved with student organizations early on. I was the president of my dorm [Bassett] freshman year. I became a resident assistant in Randolph. I was president of the Black Student Alliance my junior year, and I was a vice president of Duke Student Government my senior year. 

All of those different leadership experiences gave me the opportunity to work with a variety of different people and advocate for important change on campus, to be a voice on behalf of students with the administration and to make sure that the lives of the student body and the employees that work at Duke were improved. 

That is what I do now on this campaign. I am working on behalf of Secretary Clinton and trying to organize folks in the state around the common vision of making sure that the economy works for everyone, that people have the opportunity to succeed and to really make a better life for themselves. That’s what Secretary Clinton is all about. I want to make sure that all Duke students who want to get involved in our campaign get involved because we are looking for folks like students at Duke to get involved. 

We’ll make ourselves available. You’ll start to see us more on social media like Facebook and Twitter. We want Duke students to engage in the campaign. That’s our main message: we want folks to get involved. 

Neelesh Moorthy contributed reporting.