Service Learning in New Hampshire

Campaign volunteering can entail a number of activities all targeted at getting your candidate elected in the primaries. This past week, I volunteered for three campaigns, each performing different tasks. The campaigns I volunteered for were those of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Donald Trump, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. I engaged in sign assembly and phone ban volunteering efforts.

On the Chris Christie campaign, the main goal was expanding name recognition. To do this, the campaign had me assemble yard signs. The signs, which were plastic and stood on metal rods, had the words “Christie” in bold, white letters on a blue background. Under the name “Christie,” was the phrase “Telling it like it is,” also in white but smaller letters. The purpose of these signs were to be placed in people’s yards and especially down roads and highways to increase Chris Christie’s name recognition around the state of New Hampshire. Talking to the Christie campaign, I asked the purpose of the signs, and if they worked. The answer I was given was that these signs can be used to gauge behavior of voter support, especially the ones in people’s yards. From my personal experience (noting I enjoy collecting and displaying signs of my candidate of choice), many people find them annoying and overrated, however, in New Hampshire, where the primary process is a big deal, signs can actually have fairly large impact.

My other volunteer experience dealt with pulling in data on voters. I did this for the Rand Paul campaign, as well as the Donald Trump campaign. The process used was that of phone banking. When calling potential Rand Paul voters, either registered Republicans or undeclared voters, there were three basic questions to ask. First, the question was whether or not that individual planned to support Senator Paul in the primary. If yes, we asked for volunteering and if no, we moved to the second question. This question was who, if anyone, that person planned to vote for in the primary election. Following this question was what the most important issue facing the country was for that person. Whatever answer was given was logged into the Paul campaign’s database, to be used in the future. When a person gave an answer concerning their most important issue, the opportunity was used to explain the Senator’s position on that issue.

The Donald Trump campaign headquarters also gave me experience in phone banking. Their campaign was definitely the best organized. Upon arrival, their team had the most people helping out with the phone banking process. The Trump campaign was also using the most up-to-date technology, using custom tablet applications and separate burner cell phones to access voters. Like Paul, Trump’s campaign had volunteers ask three simple questions: which candidate they supported, who their second candidate of choice is, and what the most important issue to the voters would be. Similarly to Senator Paul, the main groups that were focused on were registered Republicans and undeclared voters. However, Trump’s campaign went the extra mile in reaching out to those voters who have either never voted but are registered, or have not voted in decades. The custom app allowed volunteers to easily log the voter’s answers to the questions. Not all drop down menus on questions listed all candidates, however. It seemed that the campaign was focused more on those candidates whom Trump would be more likely to pull support from. This mainly included candidates such as Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Senator Rand Paul, and Senator Marco Rubio. While a number of the people I called did not support Trump, they were more than willing to give their opinions on the issues I asked about. While the majority of people I called from the Paul campaign supported Trump, while the majority of the people I called from the Trump campaign supported John Kasich, Carly Fiorina, or Senator Marco Rubio.

Phone banking proved to me that New Hampshire voters really do remain undecided until the last few weeks leading into the primary. The most important issues, at least according to my experiences, were foreign policy, immigration, and the national debt. Voters were also very enthusiastic, for the most part, to talk with the volunteers for the campaigns. They were also happy to give their opinions, something I see differently from the voters in Virginia, who tend to get annoyed with numerous calls and nonstop questions. I would agree with the many speakers this past week that there is a completely different atmosphere in New Hampshire surrounding the primary, as people are more willing and more excited about being engaged in the process, therefore more willing to have volunteers interact with them at their homes.