AC A DE MIC S
P O L I T I CA L S C I E N C E I N AC T I O N
Fresh from the campaign trail, young Monmouth alumni reminisce about a memorable election year By Barry McNamara
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A half-dozen recent Monmouth College graduates celebrating Rep. Rita Hart,” said Steve Oaks ’16, who “This is a had front-row seats to the craziness of the past said he regretted the strategy of pulling back from celebration of election season, and some of them even found door-to-door campaigning during the pandemic. “But our students’ themselves in harm’s way as historic events unfolded. we wanted to be above it all. We wanted to be the safe The six graduates took turns sharing their stories campaign.” achievements. in February during a Zoom event organized by the Monmouth College Tony Salgado ’20 worked a close campaign in College’s political science department. Georgia, where two special Senate run-off elections graduates can No one had a scarier time than Josh Perschall were held Jan. 5, with the balance of power in the go out and work U.S. Senate at stake. He was stationed in Atlanta ’19, who was part of the team that helped Randy on anybody’s Feenstra defeat incumbent Steve King in Iowa’s after working in Omaha during the run-up to the campaign.” 4th Congressional District. Perschall is now part presidential election. of Feenstra’s staff in Washington, D.C. It was only “It didn’t feel Midwestern-y at all,” he said of his fourth day on the job when the Capitol Hill insurrection Georgia. “I felt a little more intimidated there. A lot of the occurred on Jan. 6. Republicans I spoke to were dissatisfied. They didn’t feel a “It was an absolutely horrible event,” said Perschall, who was push to get out and vote. I saw a spike in voter fatigue. I firmly in the Longworth Building, next door to the Cannon Building, believe Trump questioning the results of the election hurt the where a more serious breach occurred. “I’d only lived in Republicans’ chances there.” Washington for a week. It was very surreal. I was a little bit in “This is a celebration of our students’ achievements,” said fear for our safety, but there wasn’t any commotion on our floor. political science faculty member Robin Johnson ’80 while … We were holed up for six hours. We didn’t get to go home until introducing the event. “Monmouth College graduates can go out the National Guard showed up.” and work on anybody’s campaign.” Alex Altamirano ’19 also recalled some tense moments going “The only reason I got into campaigning was because I took door-to-door in Kenosha, Wis., in Jacob Blake’s neighborhood. your class—that got the ball rolling for me,” Alex Cruz ’20 told On Aug. 23, 2020, Blake was shot seven times by Kenosha Johnson near the end of the Zoom session. Cruz worked for the police, an event that sparked outrage across the nation. Progressive Turnout Project, primarily contacting inconsistent “I wouldn’t say it was fear, but I was at times concerned Democratic voters. because the tension was just so thick in Kenosha,” he said. “There Salgado’s takeaway from the 2020 election was that more was definitely animosity there. There was definitely tension subjectivity is needed. there.” “The only way to get better is to take away the reality TV In the end, Altamirano and his co-workers were not able to tip part of politics—worrying less about ratings and more about Kenosha County’s vote in the Democrats’ favor. subjectivity,” he said. It was an unusual year in politics and in the world, and Libby Altamirano spoke to that sentiment, and also about learning to Meyer ’15, who writes for the online site Iowa Starting Line, said take his lumps and to keep moving forward. maybe we should have seen that coming after the struggles by “Josh and I don’t usually agree, but it doesn’t influence Iowa Democrats to provide timely results of the February caucus. what I think of him as a person. We agree to disagree. … As “Pete Buttigieg won by a hair, but The Associated Press for campaigning itself, you’ve got to be comfortable being actually never declared a winner,” said Meyer. “The struggles uncomfortable. You’ve got to learn to take the punches and roll with the new reporting app the Democratic Party developed was with them.” one of the first signs that 2020 was going awry. If only we knew Said Salgado: “Be empathetic to people, be patient. Knocking then that the whole year was going to go awry.” on doors is truly like a box of chocolates. You never know what Iowa had another instance of a candidate winning by a hair, as you’re going to get.” Mariannette Miller-Meeks edged Rita Hart by just six votes out But, as Oaks said, being face-to-face sure beats a phone call— of nearly 400,000 votes cast in the 2nd Congressional District, one of two rules-of-thumb he said applies whether the subject is the narrowest margin of victory in a U.S. House race since 1984. the wild 2020 election, or one from previous years: “Yard signs “Iowa would still be a Democratic state, and we’d be don’t vote, and nobody wants to talk to you on the telephone.”
MONMOUTH COLLEGE MAGAZINE
