2020 election ‘feels a lot different’ on Kentucky college campuses, too.
Youth voter turnout is a perennial question mark, but in this pivotal, pandemic-plagued election year, Kentucky’s college-age voters have had to find new ways to get their friends to vote.
The disappearance of on-campus voting locations plus the wider availability of mail-in ballots and wider windows for early voting have provided both challenges and advantages to an age group that historically has had lower turnout compared to their older peers.
Early voting turn out for this year’s election has dwarfed years past and many local experts say an increasingly polarized electorate looking to oust their political opposition in a once-in-a-generation pandemic could be responsible for the boost. National polls, like Harvard’s youth poll released last week, have hinted that this will trickle down to younger voters and potentially lead to record youth turnout nationally.
A lack of in-person recruiting opportunities has caused a drop in attendance among the University of Kentucky’s College Democrats, said the group’s president, Aidan O’Brien. The group, which typically helps politically minded students get involved with local Democrat campaigns, has also seen a change in the way they volunteer.
“Everything is a lot different this year,” O’Brien said. “In the past, we have conducted a lot of canvassing efforts, you know knocking on doors, a lot of in person stuff, a lot of rallies. This year, obviously, we can’t do that as easily.”
O’Brien said this year, they’ve encouraged members to focus on phone banking, text banking and friend banking — which essentially boils down to making sure the folks in their contact list know where, how and who to vote for.
Because fewer students are generally strolling campus this year, O’Brien said campaigns have had to work more closely with student groups whose membership contain the contacts of potential voters.
The on- and near-campus polling locations within walking distance of students are gone this year so campaigns and student groups have also had to look for creative solutions to get students to polls if they didn’t mail-in or drop-off their ballots.
During early voting, yard signs for Amy McGrath, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Mitch McConnell, dotted the UK campus. Those signs included written-on directions instructing students who didn’t have a ride to a poll to call a phone number for a free drive to the nearest polling location.
Popular ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft have also distributed codes that guarantee a free round-trip ride to a voting location if it’s $15 or less.
On the plus side, the increase in early voting days and voting on Saturdays may have made it easier for students caught up in part-time jobs and classwork to get their vote in. O’Brien, a Rowan County native, said this could have been particularly important for students like him who might have to drive out of the county to vote.
The pandemic also hasn’t necessarily limited the ability for student protests. Students have been present for the marches and protests for racial equality and police reform. UK’s Black Student Union hosted a large march in September and smaller continuing protests throughout October and senior Khari Gardner started a vocal student group which works to insure greater racial equality on campus.
Conservative, Lexington-area college students have also made their way into national political relevance. Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School grad who was the centerpiece of a 2019 viral video which has become politically incendiary for both sides of the aisle, gave a speech at this year’s Republican National Convention and went to work for Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign as he started his freshman year at Transylvania University.
The 17-year-old Natalie Dellinger, a high school senior who takes classes at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, said she got a taste of the country’s intense political polarization when she performed surveys of frequent Kentucky voters for the college’s annual public opinion poll.
Cold calling strangers to ask about their political opinions was “definitely nerve wracking” for Dellinger. “Especially since you know, the political situation right now is just so hot.”
Every student who worked in the survey — generally those in general education American government courses — had to call six voters from the Sixth Congressional District, two from eastern Kentucky and two from western Kentucky.
When asking voters how they thought leaders have handled the pandemic and who they planned to vote for in national and statewide races, Dellinger said some callers immediately hung up or tried to give far too much information. Some in the class, even faced hostile dismissals, she said.
The survey of about 250 people predicted favorable results for Sen. McConnell and President Donald Trump in the Bluegrass state. In the presidential race, Prof. Hossein Motamedi, who has run the poll since 2004, said the number of undecided voters the students uncovered — less than 10 percent — was notable.
Generally, he feels more comfortable with a poll’s result when undecided voters are under 5 percent. He said the 2016 presidential election poll also featured a high number of undecided voters — between 12 and 16 percent.
Participation in the BCTC poll, which was graded to be high enough to be included in the New York Times’ aggregate poll, was an excellent early exercise for students potentially new to politics, said Motamedi.
“(The students) have to have some understanding of the issues themselves, before they call prospective voters and asking them these questions,” Motamedi said. “So it’s of paramount importance that they learn how this poll is conducted in terms of talking to the public, dealing with the public and familiarity with various different political issues that give real time results.”
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 11:18 AM.