Student political groups will use summer to prepare for elections
Summer will be anything but a break for campus political groups that are gearing up for the June primaries and November general election.
“Smart political organizations in both parties use the summer as a time to get prepared and to get organized,” said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics. “It’s important to get ready.”
The primaries for both the gubernatorial and senatorial elections will be held June 8, and the general elections will be held Nov. 2. The primaries are more important to the Republicans — neither the senatorial nor the gubernatorial race is contested on the Democrats’ side — but both the USC College Democrats and the USC College Republicans have plans to remain active this summer.
Lauren Korbatov, public relations director for the USC College Republicans, said that, although the club will not have regular meetings during the summer, its members in the L.A. area remain very active and are updated by e-mail on local political events.
Alexa Ekman, president of the USC College Republicans, said the club doesn’t normally hold any events during the summer but will this year because of the upcoming elections.
“It’s important that when people go home for the summer they can still be involved,” Ekman said. “It’s still a really hectic and busy time for everyone in charge.”
Korbatov said the USC College Republicans hope to encourage students to volunteer for the general election races and put time into supporting gubernatorial and senatorial candidates.
“We’ll try to focus on and juggle both,” Korbatov said. “It’s totally up to people who they want to get behind as individuals and who they want to support. We support all of our members even if we’re not backing the same candidates.”
Ekman added that the USC College Republicans’ focus on gubernatorial and senatorial elections would be equal.
“We don’t want to alienate any members who work with our club by focusing on one person or election,” Ekman said. “We want to help our members because it’s especially crucial this year, especially for voter turnout.”
Though the USC College Democrats don’t need to deal with picking a candidate, they still have work to do.
Schnur said it’s likely that incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will have a much more competitive race this year than she has had in the past, especially after Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) election in the special election in Massachusetts.
“She’s certainly still the favorite, but this will be a much more challenging race for her,” he said.
Boxer will face the winner of the Republican primary, which is currently a tight race between State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and former Congressman Tom Campbell.
In the governor’s race, Attorney General Jerry Brown will more than likely get the nod from the Democrats, and will likely run against either California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner or former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.
As the USC College Democrats register students to vote, they will explain both races to them as well as why they’re both very important, according to Bobby Almeida, president of USC College Democrats.
Though the USC College Democrats don’t meet during the summer as a club, its executive members will use the time to prepare for the fall, said Aja Heisler, the club’s director of external communications.
“We’re planning a couple of events for the summer, but mostly we spend it organizing things so we can return full force in the fall,” Almeida said.
Schnur said that since there are contested primaries between elections for the Republicans and not for Democrats, this time is more important for the GOP.
“There’s a lot more at stake for Republicans,” he said.
He noted that for the USC College Republicans, this is an especially critical time.
The way students voted in the last presidential election could also influence the way students vote this year, Schnur said, adding that studies indicate the first two votes a young person casts are the leading indicator of how that individual will vote in the future.
“Two years ago, Barack Obama drew a greater level of support from voters than any candidates in any party in a long, long time,” Schnur said. “Democrats’ [Jerry] Brown and Boxer want to cement that support. Republican candidates want to try to convince young voters to switch back. Both parties understand the stakes involved with young voters.”