Every four years, a class of Siena College students and their professor go to New Hampshire to see the presidential primary process up close. WAMC spoke with some of them ahead of tonight’s election.
Dr. Kevin Baron is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Siena College in Loudonville. He leads the class – Presidential Nominations – which gives Siena students, most of them in politics-related majors, the chance to get involved in a campaign.
“The students were able to spend about 25 hours working on campaigns, as well as engaging in a lot of other political activities, meetings, roundtables, town halls, that give them a sense of why New Hampshire stands out as one of the early states within a presidential primary cycle,” Baron said.
Baron coordinated with field directors on the ground in Manchester to get the students started.
“A lot of presidential campaigns now use various apps on their phones, that has all the voter data and information. So they're having the students essentially microtargeting neighborhoods. So we'll take them into a neighborhood they have on the app on their phone, what houses they're supposed to go knock doors on, and have prepared, you know, pitch for the candidate,” Baron said.
Baron says students were free to switch at any point.
The Granite State experience is just the start of the class, which meets three times a week for the rest of the semester.
“I think the students really saw some of that tedious day to day work, going in every day and spending two- or three-hours phone banking or getting a map on their phone for a neighborhood and saying, Okay, you're going to head into this neighborhood, go knock on these doors for the next four hours,” Baron said.
Most eyes are on the Republican side, with former President Donald Trump facing former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Despite being the incumbent, President Joe Biden is running as a write-in after the Democratic National Committee changed the primary schedule to put South Carolina first. New Hampshire Democrats defied the order and Biden isn't on the ballot as a result, but his allies are still working to put on a strong showing.
Christian Reynolds is a junior political science major who worked on the campaign of Democratic challenger Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Congressman.
“My group was phone banking, was calling people and like, just letting them know, about like, the candidate’s policies, and asking them where they were going to vote, and just logging who they were planning on voting for,” Reynolds said.
He says he learned a lot.
“The process is really hard, and takes a lot of a lot of grassroots, especially in New Hampshire, where people want to, like, get to know their candidate, or know that they care,” Reynolds said.
Sean Cunniffe is a political communications major who spent his time in Manchester going door-to-door with Haley’s campaign.
“What we were given was an app on our phones. And this app had a map and a list of every house that we were going to. Most of these houses were either leaning conservative or have had voted in conservative or Republican elections beforehand, or even, like, signed up for Nikki Haley email,” Cunniffe said.
As for what he heard from voters?
“Most of the time, we got no answer or ‘go away,” Cunniffe said.
Cunniffe says he now understands the importance of involvement.
“Even if it's on a local level, just knowing who your congressman is, or your state representative is because most people don't. And it's a world that although we see it on a national scale, and we get tired of it, the low scale stuff is always interesting,” Cunniffe said.
Other than that, he says differences between a primary and general election were eye-opening.
“People on the ground, they may, let's say, Donald Trump, they like Donald Trump. They like Nikki Haley. They like Chris Christie or Ron DeSantis. But as soon as the primary’s over, everybody's going to come and support the Republican candidate, mostly,” Cunniffe said.
Braden Tims is a sophomore political science major who also worked for Haley. He says Haley voters want a return to pre-Trump conservativism.
“More people that I met, they were on the older side, who have been engaged in politics in New Hampshire for a long time. So it seemed they were more compelled to vote for Nikki Haley,” Tims said.
He says he has a new appreciation for the process, and encourages people to get involved.
“People across the country may not really take it too seriously. But it's very important to, you know, recognize that you're voting for the people who represent you, whether it's, you know, your local or if it's the president of the United States, it's who's representing you, and you want as a country,” Tims said.
Most polls close in New Hampshire close at 7 p.m., with some open until 8 p.m. Special coverage on WAMC begins at 7.
