On February 1st, the process of electing our 45th president officially began with a caucus in Iowa. Every state in the United States holds a primary election between now and mid-June, and after every state has had its say, the prevailing candidates represent their party in the general presidential election. In Iowa, citizens voted for Ted Cruz for the Republican Party, and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party. The next primary election is being held in our neighboring state of New Hampshire on February 9th.
Primary elections differ from the general election because they pit members of the same political party against each other, and candidates are often competing for the same demographic of people. Lasell college student, Connor Reardon, an active volunteer for Ted Cruz, a Republican frontrunner, has given Her Campus some insight into the process that a political campaign goes through when preparing for a primary.
Reardon has been a volunteer on Cruz’s campaign in New Hampshire since Cruz announced his plan to run for president. The Cruz campaign began preparing for the upcoming New Hampshire election last summer, hosting events and reaching out to constituents. The process of campaigning in specific states, especially states as important to the election as New Hampshire, involves volunteers reaching out personally to voters, making phone calls, and organizing events for voters to familiarize themselves with the candidate. A large focus of the primary campaign is encouraging voter participation.
Of these methods, Reardon cites door-knocking as the most effective form of campaigning, saying, “You can make phone calls sure, but the best way to get someone to vote is to have a personal relationship with them.” This one-on-one contact not only encourages voters to vote for a certain candidate, but also reminds them of their civil responsibility to get out and vote on election day. Reardon credits the persuasiveness of person-to-person contact with reminding voters of the impact they can have, saying, “People want to feel important and we want them to feel important because they are. The single individual is the most important thing in this race.”
In the primary race, candidates tend to focus on a demographic of voters that they know is likely to vote for their candidate, since only voters registered for their party can vote in their respective primary. To streamline their campaign technique, campaigns use “Sophisticated data and analytics… [to] help target certain groups of people.” Reardon also cites the importance of social media in the campaigning process. Candidates can use social media to reach out to their constituents, as well as spread their campaign platform to a large demographic of people.
The other method of campaigning used is holding events and public forums. Political candidates will often host events, give speeches, and answer questions in local venues to connect personally with their voters. Specifically, Reardon describes Cruz’s schedule as, “Bus tours where he has 3-5 events in a day, and he will make sure everyone in the audience that has a question will get their question answered, every person who wants a picture will get one, and everyone who wants a autograph will get one”. Though the candidate is the primary focus at said events, they could not be successful if it weren’t for the dedication and effort of staffers and volunteers on the campaign. Preparing for the events is a long process that begins with getting word out to members of the community. Reardon describes the process that he goes through when spreading the word about Cruz events, saying, “Usually the campaign will give us different papers to hand out during door knocking that will have event dates on it. The website, tedcruz.org has all of the events laid out in detail with reservations for the event. Making phone calls, we can tell voters different places where he will be and encouraging them to come.” The next step is preparing the venue on the day of the event, and Reardon explains, “During events we hand everyone a Cruz 2016 sticker, a rally sign, and have them sit wherever they like. Then we put up the American flag and the state’s flag behind Ted on the stage, along with the “TrusTed” banner behind him. We also make sure the audio is working correctly, that Ted has either a mic or a lapel mic (whatever he is feeling like that day).” These events are held to give supporters a chance to see their candidate, but also to give undecided voters a chance to ask the candidate questions about issues that are important to them.
Though it can be easy to overlook primary elections as less important than the general election, they are extremely important in deciding who will be the next leader of our country. Make sure you register to vote, and check when your state is holding their primary elections!