Eighteen Princeton students spent the weekend before the New Hampshire primary canvassing for Bernie Sanders. Spread across the southern part of the state, the group of undergraduate and graduate students braved temperatures in the single digits to knock on doors and engage with voters before they headed to the polls.
With only days to go before the primary, student volunteers were primarily engaged in a get-out-the-vote effort. Despite this mandate, some of the volunteers reported that they went the extra mile and managed to convince an undecided voter or two.
Ananya Malhotra ’20 described her experience, “It felt good to volunteer my time for a candidate I’m passionate about and to feel like I had some tiny part to play in this historic election instead of sitting at home and anxiously watching the news. My favorite part was speaking with people about the issues that matter most to them and what they want from the next four years.”
Justin Wittekind ’22 and Max McGougan ’21 primarily organized the trip to New Hampshire. Wittekind serves as the President of Princeton’s Young Democratic Socialists (YDS) and McGougan served as co-chair before him.
“I think it was great that we were able to involve as many people as we did in this critical part of the Sanders campaign,” Wittekind said. “It doesn’t hurt that Bernie ended up winning, but I don’t think our work is anywhere near done.”
Based on the success of their New Hampshire trip, YDS is currently advertising another trip for the weekend before Super Tuesday to canvass in western Massachusetts.
In New Hampshire, the Princeton students joined other volunteers from across the state and beyond, including dedicated supporters who made similarly lengthy journeys to canvass for the weekend. Some volunteers told the students that they had been on the ground organizing New Hampshire for months.
Fellow Bernie supporters hosted the Princeton students, providing them with a place to sleep and warm up after a day spent walking in the snow.
The Princeton volunteers described canvassing as an arduous process. They learned quickly that most doors on their route will never open, whether because the homeowner is busy, at work, or simply uninterested.
The Sanders campaign told Vox that before the final get-out-the-vote weekend they had knocked on upward of 450,000 doors. Then, as part of the aforementioned get-out-the-vote-effort, volunteers for the campaign knocked on 150,000 doors the Saturday before the primary alone. For context, according to the most recent Census data, there are only about 475,000 households in the entire state of New Hampshire.
This massive mobilization paid off: Bernie Sanders secured a victory in the New Hampshire primary, providing him with crucial momentum heading into Nevada and the upcoming South Carolina caucus.
Bernie opened his Tuesday night victory speech by thanking his volunteers. He emphasized their importance in what became a close contest.
“The reason that we won tonight in New Hampshire, and last week in Iowa, is because of the hard work of so many volunteers,” Sanders claimed.
Wittekind also had a message for potential new volunteers: “We intend to ramp up our campus presence and work on organizing students for the campaign. If this is something that might interest you, please get in contact with me (justinbw@princeton.edu) and we will loop you in as soon as possible.”
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