Why does my record have all nil fields after being saved?

I am making an ember and rails app.

I am trying to do a post request to http://localhost:3000/candidates

My request is getting a 200 and is creating a record but everything is nil: Why is this?

#<Candidate id: 15, name: nil, email: nil, created_at: "2018-08-23 22:28:07", updated_at: "2018-08-23 22:28:07"> 

here is my controller code:

class CandidatesController < ApplicationController
  # POST /candidates
  # def create
  #   @candidate = Candidate.create!(candidate_params)
  #   json_response(@candidate, :created)
  # end

  def create
    puts "create"
    puts params
    puts candidate_params
    candidate = Candidate.create!(candidate_params)

    if candidate.save
      render jsonapi: candidate
    else
      render jsonapi_errors: candidate.errors
    end
  end

  private

  def candidate_params
    # whitelist params
    params.permit(:name, :email)
  end
end

and here is my ember code:

import Ember from "ember";

export default Ember.Route.extend({
  model() {
    // return this.get("store").findAll("candidate");
  },
  actions: {
    createCandidate() {
      console.log("create candidate");
      let candidate = this.get("store").createRecord("candidate", {
        id: 1,
        name: "Katie",
        email: "katie@gmail.com"
      });
      candidate.save();
    }
  }
});

I am also getting this error in my js console: SyntaxError: Unexpected end of JSON input

I am using the 'jsonapi-rails' gem

Thanks, Kato