This post was written by Hatchet reporter Maggie Carleen.
Stakes are high in Massachusetts, where nearly 30 College Republicans traveled for Election Day to preserve the state’s first red Senate seat in decades.
Sen. Scott Brown is battling Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren to hang onto the seat he won in a 2010 special election, succeeding former Sen. Ted Kennedy. At more than $70 million, it is the costliest congressional race of the election cycle.
Students traveled Friday night to Lowell, Mass. to join a 72-hour get-out-the-vote effort funded by the Massachusetts Republican Party block Mass Victory. The group, which included Georgetown University students, began knocking on doors and calling prospective voters Saturday morning, continuing throughout the weekend.
“It’s been a lot of door-knocking and talking,” sophomore Alex Miller, vice chairman of GW College Republicans, said. “We’ve probably slept about three to four hours a night.”
By Sunday, students helped Brown’s campaign knock on about 3,000 doors and make over 30,000 phone calls, Sinead Casey, president of the GW College Republicans, said.
“If you look at the recent polls, we’ve been having a huge impact,” Casey said. “The people we’ve talked to going door-to-door have been really enthusiastic about it.”
She added that voters are more receptive to hearing real people over the phone instead of a machine to express “personal touch to show them how much is at stake and to encourage them to get to the polls.”
A dozen students will stay in Massachusetts through Wednesday to attend Brown’s watch party.
Kaitlyn Martin, chair of the D.C. Federation for College Republicans, worked with Casey to plan to last-minute campaign push, praising the joint efforts of College Republicans across the country.
“The Scott Brown race is one of the most watched and most important Senate races of this election term,” she said. “We wanted to be somewhere where we could make a difference. I really felt we would be best utilized here.”
