The College Fix

College Democrats mum on efforts

Georgia voters will decide on Tuesday which party controls the U.S. Senate. Conservative students plan to make a difference in support of Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue and have already reached hundreds of thousands of voters.

College Republicans, pro-life student groups, conservative and similar organizations have sent teams to knock on doors in Georgia recently to help sway the outcome. Their outreach also includes making phone calls and sending text messages in order to help elect Loeffler and Perdue.

“We will be sending more than 200+ students and SFLAction team members for door knocking and contacting voters, following local rules for social distancing,” Kristi Hamrick, a spokesperson for Students for Life Action, told The College Fix via email.

“The pro-life group plans to knock on 70,000 doors leading up to the election,” Hamrick said.

Students For Life Action is the political advocacy arm of Students for Life of America, a national pro-life student organization.

GEORGIA: Can we count on you to #VoteProLifeFirst in 2 days? The pro-life generation and thousands of preborn children are counting on you to show up to the polls. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/81KyJ65EsI

— Students for Life Action (@SFLAction) January 3, 2021

Hamrick explained the importance of the election, which features two U.S. Senate seats due to a vacancy created by a resignation in 2019.

Hamrick said:

Already the abortion lobby has been bragging about how they have been “wildly successful” in getting what they want from a possible Biden Administration. It is vital that pro-life Georgians Vote Pro-Life First because the stakes truly are life and death as the U.S. Senate would be a check and balance on activist government.

Another conservative group will add to those numbers in support of the Republicans and has been on the ground for several weeks now.

“Youth for Loeffler and Perdue is a grassroots coalition made up of young people who are encouraging their peers and other Georgia voters,” a press release from the organization said. “Coalition members have already knocked more than 115,000 doors and sent 150,000 text messages for the run-off elections alone.”

“PACs and donors have spent funds to ensure our coalition members have the tools they need to be successful in their goal of promoting the common-sense solutions of Senators Loeffler and Perdue and rejecting the extreme socialist agenda on their opponents,” spokesperson Lee Jackson said via email to The Fix. The group is targeting voters ages 18 to 29.

The Young Leadership Coalition, a group that trains Arizona conservative activists, sent 32 conservative activists to Georgia to assist in the election, according to a tweet from the organization.

https://twitter.com/YLC_AZ/status/1346061228012167169

“[T]he majority of students are College Republicans from Arizona, California, and Washington,” Jeremiah Willett, the group’s founder, said via email to The Fix.

With colleges and high schools on break, Willett said that there’s an uptick in student involvement in this election.

“The timing for this runoff election is perfect from a grassroots and volunteer recruitment perspective,” Willett said. “Many students who are passionate political activists are happy to give up their holidays to work for a cause that they believe in.”

Willett said he hopes that every volunteer will be able to knock on approximately 150 doors every day.

The election has continued to draw national attention. The Stanford College Republicans even traveled to the state to knock on doors.

“Over the course of last week we have done nearly 1,000 calls to get out the vote for Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue,” the conservative group said in a Facebook post on December 27. It “already [has] members knocking doors in Georgia right now, and over the course of the last two days [members] have knocked on over 300 doors total.”

The group wrote on January 3:

We have since knocked more than 1,800 doors and walked tens of miles. We even had the rare opportunity to chat with several undecided voters, and we hope that the words we left them with were enough to ensure that they make the right decision on election day.

College Democrats quiet on election efforts

The College Fix attempted to reach a Senate campaign and the College Democrats for Georgia for information on its voter outreach efforts, especially among students.

The Fix had been referred to Robyn Donaldson, an organizer for Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff’s campaign. Donaldson did not respond to multiple emailed requests for comment in the past week. Ossoff is running against Senator Perdue.

The Fix reached out to Bhavin Patel, president for the College Democrats of Georgia, and Carter Hamby, the secretary of the statewide organization, asking if its members planned on getting involved with the Senate run-offs and in what way.

While Patel did not respond to multiple emailed requests for comment in the past two weeks, Hamby responded on December 18 that he forwarded the questions to other members to answer. The Fix has not received any comment since that initial email. Hamby did not respond to a follow-up email for comment.

The group has not posted in 9 days on its Facebook page, though on December 26 it promoted a one hour “friend banking” event and on December 5 it promoted a sign waving event in support of the Senate candidates. Friend banking refers to ensuring that peers have a plan to vote.

Some big center-right players silent on outreach plans

Other conservative groups that are normally involved in political outreach also did not respond to requests for comment on planned election efforts.

Turning Point Action, formed in 2019 to target Democratic candidates for defeat, did not respond to multiple emailed requests for comment on involvement in the two Senate races. Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet did not respond to two emailed requests for comment in the past two weeks.

Its website does not say anything about the Georgia election but does promote a rally in support of President Trump on January 6, the day Congress will certify the results of the presidential election.

The Fix also reached out to Young Americans for Liberty to see if it would be involved in the election. YAL’s “Operation Win at the Door” operation targets specific races in support of libertarian candidates.

Emma Meshell, the communications director of the libertarian student organization, did not respond to three emailed requests for comment in the past two weeks. YAL President Cliff Maloney did not respond to a text message request for comment either.

MORE: Pro-life students have knocked on more doors than Biden presidential campaign

IMAGES: Students for Life Action

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