Partisan and nonpartisan groups on Grounds are out in full force as the Nov. 5 Election Day draws near.
The showdown between Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe and Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli has been in the national spotlight for months, but the ballots across the state will be supplemented with candidates seeking election in lieutenant governor, attorney general, House of Delegates and a slew of local races.
College Republicans Chair Elizabeth Minneman, a third-year College student, said the College Republicans at the University have been working hard to increase student voter participation and garner support for Republican candidates in both statewide and local elections.
“We’ve gone around to fraternities and first-year dorms trying to find supporters and get them volunteering and get them out to vote,” Minneman said. “We have about 20 people interning at the Cuccinelli office right now.”
University Democrats Treasurer Porter Koolman, a second-year College student, said the University Democrats also have been working hard.
“Since May, we’ve been [campaigning] for McAuliffe,” Koolman said. “More recently we’ve been picking up [our efforts] — not necessarily changing anything — but we’ve started doing them at a more intense level. We have double canvas shifts scheduled for this weekend in preparation for the day before the election.”
Minneman said the College Republicans will also continue working through the weekend, while also campaigning for local candidates.
“This weekend especially, we’re really pushing the [Charlottesville] City Council and [Albemarle County] Supervisor elections,” she said. “We’re going to be working really hard for them.”
But Minneman also said the outlook of this election looks grimmer than she would have liked.
“We were excited about the election,” she said. “But…[now] we’re losing hope and people are kind of starting to lose some momentum, unfortunately. We see the polls.”
Cuccinelli was down by 12 points in an Oct. 28 Washington Post poll, but just four points in a Wednesday Quinnipiac University poll
Koolman, conversely, said the University Democrats have felt an increase in momentum because of the polls.
“I think there’s been an increasing amount of relief [and] excitement [in the University Democrats] as more and more polls are showing McAuliffe further and further ahead of Cuccinelli in the past couple weeks,” he said.
Minneman said the College Republicans plan to continue working hard to get Republicans elected.
“Even if we are going to lose the governorship and maybe the [Lieutenant Governor race] as well, we still have the Attorney General,” she said. “We have some down ticket races, delegate races, City Council and supervisor races that are still really close and that we still need to be working hard for.”
Virginia21, a nonpartisan group on Grounds which aims to keep young voters informed, has held a voter registration drive on Grounds.
“We’re trying out for the first year an online infrastructure that better enables students to vote and remember their schedule,” said Virginia21 President Brendan Wynn, a fourth-year College Student. “We created a website called virginia.edu/voteuva … and we registered hundreds of students on Grounds. [These students] will get either a text message or an email letting them know the voting hours of their precinct, where their precinct is, and it’ll ask that they confirm that they voted.”
The leaders of all three of these organizations speculated voter turnout among students would be low.
“Do I expect students to vote? I don’t, honestly, is the sad thing,” Koolman said. “I wish I could say that that wasn’t true, but voting patterns, just historically, drop off tremendously in elections [the year after the presidential election] and Virginia’s one of the few states that has a gubernatorial off-year election.”
Minneman said turnout could also be harmed by students perceiving both candidates as too extreme.
“I don’t know if students will be voting as much as they did last year,” Minneman said. “I think students are a little upset … and personally I’m not too thrilled about the two candidates we have either. But I do believe Cuccinelli’s the best choice for Virginia.”
Wynn agreed students have been turned off by both candidates.
“We’d see more enthusiasm [for the election] if there was more enthusiasm behind either candidate,” Wynn said. “And that’s just not the case in this year’s election.”
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