What The School Thought About Our Campaigns

When it came to engagement, it seems that the event was a big hit, with food events, social media battles, and the debate itself being big drawing factors. Though this was the case, people disagreed whether or not this was actually the best for the mock election. Harold Renfro’s interviews, which went deep into what people thought should happen in future events, displayed this perfectly. Some people believed that there needs to be a better balance between fun and information, with both of Renfro’s freshman interviewees, being Alice Hayes and Calla Sieber, stating that campaigns would need to be fun in order to attract an audience, although still preferring there to be a more “politically structured” election in the future. Others, such as Junior Olivia Kang, believed simply that there needed to be a lot less investment in the entertainment value of the campaign, and that there needed to be a more facts-based campaign in the future.

Across the board, it seemed like non campaigners resonated most with the way that candidates presented themselves, as well as the policy that they spoke about. Many cited the debate, or the final video as a “turning point”, with the social media conflict and public events also gaining multiple mentions. Iwony Chen, an interviewee of Sabrina Leong’s, stated that it was the food and social media battles online that initially drew him into the campaign, leading him to stay engaged for the rest of the campaign. Simultaneously, it is also true that the campaign changes many people’s perspectives about each candidate. According to Andrew Trinh’s data, 3 out of his 6 interviewees changed their vote midway through the campaign, with most of them citing the candidates’ performances during the debate as their “changing points”. Saoirse Hyland’s data also comes to this conclusion, with students stating that Shapiro’s address of his ICE issues was brilliant and that his “getting things done” statements were effective. It seems that the AOC campaigns inability to effectively refute these claims caught them at the end during the debate, where many students swapped their votes. So called “hype” was seemingly a universal motivator for all students, who generally preferred Shapiro’s approach to hype, accounting for the multitude of last minute “swap” votes.

For those that did not change their votes, a clear advantage is visible for Shapiro in spite of AOC’s online popularity. According to Saiorse Hyland’s data, only 1 of her 6 interviewees knew of AOC at all, while 4 of the 6 knew about Shapiro. This was a given knowing that Shapiro is the current governor of our state. It is also known that by Andrew Trinh’s data, half of the students had the same candidate in mind from beginning to end.

Students generally thought that the AOC campaign had a stronger informative effect on them in comparison to the Shapiro campaign. Alice Hayes and Calla Sieber both stated that AOC has an overall stronger campaign, using less opinionated facts, but conceded that Shapiro’s video outcompeted AOC’s. Additionally, people seemed to prefer AOC’s answers to questions during the debate, stating that she carried herself better than Shapiro, who was instead praised for his “comedic delivery” (as stated by Junior interviewee Beatrice Bloovman). People also seemingly preferred AOC’s events, stating that she was more well spoken and formal.

Where AOC fell short was her promotional materials and her inability to address the Shapiro campaign’s points about the feasibility of AOC’s proposals. Andrew Trinh’s data stated that the voters he interviewed that swapped from AOC to Shapiro cited the infeasibility of AOC’s plans as a reason for swapping the vote, with many deeming the campaign’s response to Shapiro’s attacks as insufficient. Additionally, since most people seemingly voted in accordance with a combination of policy items and presentation, it is likely that AOC’s video fell short of Shapiro’s in the eyes of many, leading to the mass exodus of voters after the debate.

Generally, the most common praises for the Shapiro campaign surrounded their promotional material and Shapiro’s self presentation. Across almost all interviewees, the Shapiro campaign’s debate promo video was noted and cited as a major motivator, but this was controversial among interviewed students, with some stating that too much value was put into entertainment. Another recurring theme was Shapiro’s ability to address AOC’s “ICE” based attacks against his campaign, claiming that he provided ICE with Pennsylvania justice system records. Both online and in person, students noticed that Shapiro was able to deal with “gotcha” questions easily, and hence was unaffected by them.

Interviewees’ complaints about Shapiro mostly surrounded his lack of address for his own policies and focus on attacking AOC. Interviews conducted by Saiorse Hyland universally contained this idea, with people repeatedly criticizing Shapiro for being skittish on his own policies, but confident when attacking AOC, especially on her feasibility issues. It is for this reason that many students desired a more formalized process.

Overall though, it seems that regardless of the quantity of aforementioned political knowledge, people considered the mock election a good tool for either learning or increasing the chance of political involvement. Across most of the interviews I have analyzed, only one stated that they were less likely to involve themselves in politics after the mock election, stating that the pressure, stress, and tension involved scared them. Otherwise, across the board people stated that they would be more likely to vote and/or compete in a political event. Those who claimed to have very little background knowledge, such as interviewee Iwony Chen, cited specific candidate policy in their interviews, indicating that they had absorbed a good deal of political information from each campaign. Those with self proclaimed background knowledge, for example, Mose Albert and Griffin Hatchis, also stated that the campaign was engaging but also indicated that they received less new knowledge from the events. Instead, these interviewees talked more about their personal political beliefs and experiences, using the campaign as a way to practice, evaluate, and stress test those beliefs. Either way, it does seem that according to non-campaign feedback, that the mock election did a very good job at getting people to engage with politics, and if they had little background knowledge, learned more about candidates through events. Though many criticized the campaign for its focus on entertainment, people overall seemed more satisfied and informed as a result of the election.

What Gov Members Thought About Our Campaign

Across the class, people were split as to which parts of the campaign were successful. Nonetheless, most stated that we as a class did a good job of informing and motivating the school to participate politically, often citing the positive results of our polling as justification for such a thought process. The big split was over whether the campaign wasn’t moderated enough for attacks or if it was overmoderated. Some campaign members, such as Saoirse Hyland, stated that the election overall would have benefitted from some fact checking and Harold Renfro, who stated that the campaign had become overly candidate based, straying from its original purpose, where the candidates would act as stand ins for their respective political “tents”. This group of students stated that the “gray area” in the rules needed to be filled. On the other hand however, some students believed that the set of rules restricting attacks deviated the election from reality, and hence were setting up students to believe in something that ultimately was not real. For example, Andrew Trinh commented that the lack of attack ads led to a neutralized campaign that became too reliant on hype in the absence of controversy. This undercurrent ran through many members of the GOV-2 class, even those who would have preferred greater moderation, as an almost universal lament was the lack of AOC-issued attacks.

Like many of the non-campaign students that we interviewed, within the class, many people believed that there was too much of a focus on entertainment and hype during this campaign cycle. Some attributed this to the abstract nature of the race, which allowed people to exploit the “gaps” and turn the campaign into a populist game of chance. Whatever the cause be, which could be bitterness from having lost the election, most members of the AOC campaign felt that the hype aspects of the election were overplayed and hence affected the campaign negatively, making it more superficial and less politically meaningful.

This is not to say however that the class overall believed the election was a failure, instead with the opposite being the case. AP GOV students generally stated that the project was successful in getting both themselves and their fellow Masterman students involved. Many recounted lunchroom banter, political debates, and a multitude of comments on social media posts as examples of the Masterman school environment being mobilized to act politically. Polling also indicated this fact, as students frequently had a lot to say about their personal views, what they learned, and which candidate they supported.

A clear and repetitive criticism however was a lack of organization and initiative. Oftentimes, jobs would go undone, and a lack of efficient communication meant that few people would even know those jobs were up for grabs. Sabrina Leong, one of our campaign managers, stated that she had to resort to forcibly assigning people to jobs due to how inefficient the process was. Some students stated that this amount of stress and lack of accomplished tasks turned the campaign into a “stress fest”, dampening the effect of the election and producing instead a situation where students on each side were just hoping for a clean resolution in order to avoid the development of true animosity both within and between the campaigns. Tasks like the lunchroom banner and some aspects of speechwriting ran on a skeleton crew, and people who often had other responsibilities were dragged into these tasks, reducing efficiency.

The most common regret is the campaign’s reluctance to indulge in campaign attacks until the very end. The Shapiro campaign was on top of its game when it came to attacks, focusing the attention of the electorate onto AOC’s legislative history (or lack thereof). Though we attempted to refute that claim by pointing out the difference between a governor and representative’s jobs, ultimately, feasibility remained a deciding factor of the campaign. Many members of the team, such as campaign manager Sabrina Leong, stated that a quicker set of refutes and a few earlier attacks of our own might have been able to turn the tide against Shapiro.

Inter-campaign conflict remained a large trouble throughout the duration of the election however, with Harold Renfro stating that by the midpoint of the election that both campaigns were utterly convinced the other was cheating. Multiple scandals arose, ranging from leaked posters, to the alleged hiring of dissidents for events, to incorrect facts, to incorrect numbers of posters in hallways. Whether a product, a cause, or both in relation to student stress, the constant mention of inter-campaign animosity warrants a mention in this document.

Overall though, it does seem that people generally saw the campaign as successful and somewhat fun. There were plenty of suggestions for improvement however. These included fact checking, a loosening of attack ad rules, a tightening of attack ad rules, a more formal debate, and an extension of deliberation time while on the debate stage. Nonetheless, the data points to the conclusion that the election was a success at mobilizing Masterman into a more politically aware and active student body.