This post was written by Hatchet reporter Amber Singh.
Freshman Griffin Goetzmann murmured “thank you for your time,” turned to a room filled with about a dozen other GW College Democrats with cell phones pressed to their ears, and announced that it was his fifth hang-up of the night.
Voters will go to the polls across Potomac River Tuesday in the most-watched political race in the country this year, which means Virginians have been flooded with calls, ads and debates. But spread out in South Hall’s community room, students made one last effort to call undecided voters to sway them to vote for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, the favorite in the race.
Brooks Boron, a senior political science and economics major, said he comes to phone bank because he’s excited to find callers who don’t intend on getting to the polls.
“Those are the fun ones,” said Boron, who is from Ohio. “You actually get to talk if they’re not hanging up on you. You get to remind them why it’s important.”
Boron said he’s most concerned about social and health issues, pointing to women’s reproductive rights, gay rights and implementing the Affordable Care Act.
McAuliffe is polling with 45.4 percent of the vote, while Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli has 38 percent, according to a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University.
As students scrolled through their computer screens, reading from scripts created by the McAuliffe campaign, they repeated slogans like “putting jobs first” and pointed to the candidate’s goals for improving public education in Virginia.
But some callers, like College Democrats President Omeed Firouzi, had a personal reason to sway voters for McAuliffe. The junior political science major said his aunt lives Virginia with a preexisting health condition, and would be more likely to get insurance with McAuliffe as her governor.
“It’s a big help that we provide because each person knocks on a certain number of doors or calls a certain number of people who then go out and tell their friends and it creates a big multiplier effect that encourages a lot of people to be exposed to the campaigns themes and messages,” Firouzi said.