Students Campaign for Favorites Until the Very End

Lauren A. Williams ’14 remembered her first “positive no” while campaigning for defeated Connecticut Senate candidate Linda McMahon.

“I’m never going to vote for Linda McMahon,” said the woman opening the door. But although she didn’t share their Republican views, she still offered to take Williams and her canvassing partner to her next-door neighbor’s house because she was impressed that the pair was “doing their civic duty.”

In preparation for the midterm elections, Harvard students from both sides of the political spectrum spent weeks hitting the streets and manning the phones in support of both candidates and specific issues.

“A CAMPAIGN ORGANIZATION”

On Saturday morning, a group of about 30 students huddled outside Johnston Gate at 10 a.m., drinking coffee and eating pastries while they waited to get on a yellow school bus that would drive them to New Hampshire.

After Harvard College Democrats President Jason Q. Berkenfeld ’11 and Campaigns Director Evelyn R. Wenger ’11 successfully corralled everyone onto the bus, Berkenfeld gave a quick pep talk about the necessity of grassroots canvassing.

Every weekend about 25 to 30 volunteers devoted their Saturdays to campaigning, according to Berkenfeld: “The Harvard College Democrats are really a campaign organization, and we are at our finest when we are devoting our efforts to campaigning specifically,” Berkenfeld said.

About an hour later, about 15 minutes from campaign headquarters, Wenger stood up to explain the views of the candidates for whom the group was canvassing—defeated Paul Hodes for Senate, defeated Carol Shea-Porter for Congress, and reelected John Lynch for governor—and the importance of the races.

After getting off the bus, the group separated into pairs and headed to campaign headquarters for training and route assignments. At 1 p.m., Allison Gofman ’14 and Gary D. J. Gerbrandt ’14, maps and flyers in hand, were ready to canvass.

The campaign had given the pair a lists of houses to go to, where they woul talk to voters and remind them to vote on Tuesday. These lists also included voting records, so Gofman and Gerbrandt knew how many times each voter had voted in the past three elections.

Early on in their campaigning, Gofman and Gerbrandt received a positive reception from a voter who had voted in all three of the past elections. “Tell your friends to vote,” Gofman reminded her.

“I’ll tell my friends to vote,” the woman said. “Well, most of them. The Republicans, I’ll tell to stay home.”

If the voter was not home and had voted three out of three times or zero out of three times, Gofman and Gerbrandt were supposed to mark “NH”—meaning “not home”—on their sheet and continue. The voters who had not voted in the past elections would be visited and called again by the campaign to ensure that they would vote.

If the voter was not home and had only voted once or twice in the past three elections, Gofman and Gerbrandt left campaign brochures, marked “NH” on their sheet, and continued.

During his multiple trips to Manchester and his one trip to Exeter, N.H., Gerbrandt gained a lot of experience about where to leave pamphlets—never in mailboxes because it is a federal offense—and learned that canvassing during a Patriots game is rarely successful.

Gerbrandt, a native of Canada, said he became involved with the Harvard Democrats because he was interested in progressive causes, despite the fact that he could not vote in the United States. “It also seemed like the logical thing to do, especially during a midterm election,” he said.

A few hours later, after Gofman and Gerbrandt had visited the 65 houses on their list, the campaign driver returned them to campaign headquarters, where they left telephone messages for the voters who were not home.

When the Harvard group piled onto the bus around 4:30 p.m., not all of the 35 volunteers were present. About five, including Berkenfeld and Wenger, stayed to sleep on floors and couches in supporters’ houses and continued canvassing and phonebanking for the next few days.

Reluctantly, Gerbrandt got on the bus back to Harvard to work on his Expos paper. His time in Cambridge was brief—the next morning, he was back on the bus to Manchester.

A CLUB, AND PARTY, REENERGIZED

There’s an increased level of engagement and energy in the Harvard Republican Club this year, according to Kevin R. Palmer ’13, the club’s vice president for social events.

While the group’s membership levels haven’t increased—hovering at around 79 dues-paid members—“there’s more energy,” Palmer said.

With the Republicans likely to take back a number of seats in the election, the club had a core group of members who spent the political season campaigning to make this happen in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.

Palmer remembered one particular house in Connecticut he visited while canvassing for McMahon with the club. The voter opened the door while on the phone and was clearly displeased to find solicitors—but his demeanor changed once he saw their Linda McMahon pins. “Hey, I’m going to have to call you back. They’re with Linda,” he told the person on the line, and proceeded to talk with Palmer about McMahon.

The increased support for Republicans this election season, said HRC President Mark A. Isaacson ’11, is partially a result of voters’ top two issues this election: the economy and jobs.

“No one even had to think about it,” he said. “You can really sense the voter’s dissatisfaction with government and politics broadly.”

Though they have spent a few days campaigning for McMahon in Connecticut and senator-elect Kelly Ayotte and Congressman-elect Frank Guinta in New Hampshire, the majority of the Republicans’ efforts were in state.

The group had been canvassing and phonebanking for defeated Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Charles D. Baker ’79 regularly. Ten to 15 people headed to Baker’s campaign headquarters every other Thursday night to phonebank, and four club members interned for Baker. Outside of the club, there were a handful of other Harvard students also interning for Baker, said Rachel L. Wagley ’11, HRC vice-president of campaigns and activism.

The group considered going to New Hampshire again last week but ultimately decided to stay in Massachusetts and campaigned for local races. “New Hampshire is in the bag for us,” Wagley said.

CAMPAIGNING CLOSER TO HOME

Aside from the standard campaigning by the HRC and the Dems, another collection of students emerged in opposition to an issue on the Massachusetts ballot this election.

Students involved with the successful “Vote No on 2” Campaign spent the past few weeks working to convince Massachusetts voters not to pass Massachusetts State Ballot Question 2, an initiative that would repeal the state’s Affordable Housing Law. Voters followed the student’s advice and voted no.

“For me, I feel like it might be an imperfect law, but it has done a lot and we shouldn’t just throw it out without having something else to offer,” said second-semester junior Lucy Claire Curran, who was involved with the campaign.

Maya S. Sugarman ’12 said she felt especially drawn to the campaign given the strong impact that homelessness had on her family. She remembered driving around with her mother as a young girl, in search of her homeless uncle. Whenever the pair spotted a homeless individual, Sugarman’s mother would say, “Maybe that’s him.”

“But it never was,” Sugarman said. The experience taught her that anyone can fall on hard times and that “everybody deserves a safe, comfortable place to live,” she said.

The “Vote No on 2” Campaign primarily worked to draw attention to the initiative. One of the main problems, Sugarman said, is that voters were not well-informed about the different ballot initiatives. Although this was a state-wide issue, the Harvard branch of the campaign stayed mainly in Boston.

“It is hard to build that excitement and urgency on campus,” Sugarman said, noting that the campaign primarily handed out flyers and held signs by T stops, grocery stores, and other places frequented by locals.

Curran said she enjoyed the experience of campaigning to block the initiative.

“It was democracy at work,” she said.

—Staff writer Monika L.S. Robbins can be reached at mrobbins@college.harvard.edu.