Election Season Brings Campaigns to Campus

Campaign trips, debate watching parties and a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton in Atwater Dining Hall: all signs that the nation’s political energy has struck campus. In preparation for November, membership and involvement in a variety of clubs, lectures and classes has increased as students find ways to participate in the election season.

College Republicans and Democrats serve as the campus nexus of political activity and campaign coordination. In response to the elections, both clubs experienced an uptick in interest and participation.

“When you approach an election year on campus, people are much more inclined to come to meetings,” said Hazel Millard ’18, co-president of College Democrats. “It’s great to take advantage of the fact that people are paying attention to us. The general population gets more interested when things are at stake, so it’s been great to harness that interest.”

The two groups meet several times a month for discussions and volunteering events. Despite the competition in both parties for the nomination, neither group sponsors a candidate. “We support all the candidates. It’s a three way split between Bernie, Hillary and undecided which makes it interesting at our meetings,” Millard said.

The participation process differs for republicans and democrats on campus. At College Republicans, students discuss and get involved with a range of candidates. For democrats, specific organizations plan events for Senator Bernie Sanders and Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while College Democrats serves as the hub for information and discussion on both.

Republican campaigns tend to reach out to the College Republicans leadership to coordinate events. Hayden Dublois ’17, co-president of College Republicans, explained the typical process.

“What we’re seeing is that a lot of republican campaigns and PACs are reaching out to us on a frequent basis from numerous candidates,” Dublois said. “We like to invite them to come and make a presentation for our club and talk about the candidate they’re supporting and oftentimes there are internship opportunities and ways to get involved.”

Republican students have been attending talks from campaigns, phone banking and campaigning on a regular basis this year. The best event so far, according to Dublois, was the trip to Burlington for a reception with Governor John Kasich.

“The event where the Vermont Republican Party co-sponsored the dinner with John Kasich was great,” Dublois said. “Not only did John Kasich speak, but the Vermont Lieutenant Governor spoke and the Chairman of the Vermont Republican party. At the end Governor Kasich shook the hand of everyone there.”

College Democrats meetings are generally reserved for students to inform themselves on the issues and advocate for the candidate they prefer. “We want it to be a resource for people to engage with democratic politics,” Millard said. “Instead of operating as one club, those who want to discuss the politics go to College Democrats, and those looking to get involved in the campaigns join the Students for Hillary or Bernie group.”

As a college in Sanders’s home state, Middlebury is home to some of his most passionate young supporters. Elizabeth Lee ’17 and Nate Rifkin ’15 founded the national organization, Students for Bernie, which now has chapters at over 200 universities across the country.

“It started out with me having this idea for Middlebury for Bernie,” Lee said. “After talking about it with other students, we thought it would be better to start a national organization, so we contacted our friends and students at progressive universities. Eventually it got on the front page of the Daily Kos and it grew quickly from that.”

Commenting on the energy she sees on campus, Lee said Middlebury, “is the perfect place for Students for Bernie to start.”

Like College Republicans does for their members, Students for Bernie helps facilitate events to raise awareness and participation in the campaign as much as possible.

Middlebury Students For Hillary serves as Clinton’s student resource.  “We started it first by looking for whatever we could do to help,” said Will Schwartz ’16, the group’s co-president.

The group has done much of the grunt work to get Clinton on the ballot in Vermont as well as several hour and a half trips to campaign in New Hampshire.

“At first we were just a small group of volunteers going over to New Hampshire to knock on some doors,” Schwartz said. “Eventually, Hillary got close to 3,000 signatures in Vermont. We as a group collected about 700 of 800 of those. We’ve been in touch with higher up people as that hard work has been recognized. That’s been very cool. We’re working hard for her.”

A range of opinions and allegiances exist within College Democrats and Republicans, but no one will dispute that the republicans are in the minority.

“It’s a challenge in that the state is liberal, the College is liberal and college students in general are more likely to be liberal,” Dublois said. “Our approach is this; we try to make our group to be as widespread and accommodating as possible. We encourage alternative and varying viewpoints under the republican label. We get people who aren’t really sure. We’ve never had any issues come up, but it definitely is a minority opinion and that’s always in the back of our minds whenever we do something. But we’ve had great success. This year our email list went from 10 to 60 which was a good improvement. We’re gaining traction, so we’ll see what happens.”

Campaigning in Vermont — where 25 percent of the population is registered as volunteers for Sanders — is a unique experience for both his supporters and opponents.

“It certainly is tough, we’re playing on his home turf and it’s very natural that he’ll have a lot of support,” Schwartz said. “What we found is that explaining to people that their signature was just to put Secretary Clinton on the ballot was helpful. It’s just saying that we want as many candidates for voters as possible. It’s a bit of an uphill challenge, but we like it. It’s tough work. We didn’t get into it to be easy. She has to compete everywhere.”

“There’s definitely an outside sense that this is Bernie country and there’s huge support for Bernie on this campus. The people who do support Hillary are very active in what they do,” Millard said.

Debate parties have also had huge turnouts, reflecting the political energy on campus.

“There is a certain type of political camaraderie to viewing debates with people who share a like mind,” Travis Wayne Sanderson ’19 said.

“The attendance at debate screenings is just extraordinary,” Lee said. “I don’t see Middlebury being a particularly politically active campus; It’s very academic, but even on school nights, during prime homework time, there are tons of people in McCullough watching the debates together.”