College Dems energized, Republicans seek ‘safe spaces’ amid consequential election season

Democracy & Doubt
Pittsburgh navigates trust and choice in the 2024 election season

Thomas Ross didn’t realize that the political interest on Pitt’s campus was “electric,” as he characterized it, until the semester’s first door-knocking event for Pitt Students for Harris brought 34 volunteers — more than double the number he expected.

“Having 34 volunteers on our first canvass literally blew my mind,” said Ross, a University of Pittsburgh junior studying history and political science. “Everyone that I’ve spoken with has been very excited about the election.” Other Democratic students echoed this, saying they’re seeing new levels of excitement from their peers.

Just up Forbes Avenue, Anthony Cacciato is aiming to make the Carnegie Mellon University College Republicans a space where students can speak freely about their conservative values. Cacciato, president of the chapter, said with election season sparking student’s political intrigue, he’s preparing for a “barrage of negative backlash.”

At colleges around Pittsburgh, political clubs are organizing students to gear up for the upcoming November elections. Club leaders cited Pennsylvania’s influence on national politics as a key reason why they’re trying to mobilize the youth vote as Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris vie for Electoral College votes.

Organizing through socializing

As on-campus political groups look to activate students this fall, many said they are trying to mix political outreach efforts with social events to appeal to young voters.

Cacciato said group outings, such as seeing the new movie “Reagan,” help prevent students  from burning out over organizing.

“We’re a space where you can feel comfortable with talking about who you are, but also feel comfortable in knowing that you’re surrounded by friends,” Cacciato said.

The club’s membership increased by 20% this semester, according to Cacciato, because of Pennsylvania’s outsize impact on national politics.

“When you have that knives-edge margin, any little bit of outreach can mean the difference between 10,000 people staying home and not voting and them going out and voting and flipping a precinct, flipping a state House seat, flipping the state, and flipping the country,” Cacciato said.

At Pitt, Sam Podnar, co-president of the Pitt College Democrats, said she creates an environment in which students can meet new people and break out of political apathy.

“We want to let people know that getting involved doesn’t have to be hard, it doesn’t have to be stressful. We just want them to keep showing up,” Podnar said.

She said President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race and endorse Vice President Harris has energized students to get involved in Democratic organizing. General body meetings, weekend canvasses and the club’s presidential debate watch party have all drawn new participants.

“We’ve seen a really, really big surge in membership that just has honestly blown everyone away,” Podnar said.

Avalon Sueiro, president of the CMU College Democrats, said finding a balance between doing work and building a community helps draw students to attend the club’s events. When election day gets nearer, she plans on bringing therapy dogs to campus to calm students’ nerves.

Making it pop

Among Democratic student organizers, leaders are leaning into memes and pop culture as they try to energize college voters.

When the semester began, the Instagram pages for Pitt Students for Harris and Pitt College Democrats both had profile photos referencing Charli XCX’s “brat” album. The pop star’s viral summer tweet calling the vice president “brat” spawned a flurry of online memes, which the Harris campaign embraced as an early branding strategy.

The CMU College Democrats executive board introduced themselves on Instagram with their “favorite Democrat meme,” making references to Dark Brandon , Chappell Roan and coconut trees . Sueiro said she hopes efforts like these excite voters at CMU, a campus she described as politically inactive.

Near the end of September, Pitt and CMU College Democrats, alongside the Young Democrats of Allegheny County, hosted congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, and Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, on CMU’s campus. Both called on students to become more politically active in their communities and support the Harris-Walz ticket.

At her club’s presidential debate watch party, Sueiro said the vibes were “fantastic” and that many students believe this to be a critical election. While she believes excitement about politics will endure through November, she’s looking to keep students engaged in organizing well into the future.

“At the end of the day, we are a democracy and that means people need to be active in choosing who is going to be in charge of this country,” Sueiro said.

To get students considering how politics impacts them, Podnar said she brings up topics that will “make a tangible difference” in their lives, such as student debt forgiveness, the cost of living and raising the minimum wage. She added that students are “really receptive to messages about reproductive rights.”

Abby DiLoreto, president of the Chatham University Democrats, said she is looking for ways to excite students to vote while educating them about the democratic process. She cited a Barbie-themed voter registration table she worked on with the Pennsylvania Center for Women in Politics in 2023 as an example of combining pop culture with voter engagement.

“We got so many people who normally ignore our voter registration tables because they were like, ‘I want a picture in the Barbie booth,’” DiLoreto said. “It was really successful.”

Divisive topics, common ground?

Leaders of College Republican chapters say they face harassment and tension from their student bodies as they organize on campus.

At Pitt, College Republicans chapter secretary Jesse Milston said the club aims to give students a space to discuss their conservative values, something he feels is “completely unwelcome on a public college campus.”

Cacciato is doing the same at CMU, where he said students of any political orientation are invited to their meetings to learn about conservative beliefs and dialogue with Republican students.

“It’s important that you have the opportunity to speak,” Cacciato said, “but it’s also important that people have the opportunity to challenge you respectfully on what you believe so you can either learn to grow in what you believe or grow in ways that you can help talk about what you believe and defend what you believe.”

Cacciato said some members of the CMU College Republicans have been called profane names and experienced social isolation for being openly Republican on campus.

“I’ve had people in the past stop talking to me because they find out I’m a Republican,” Cacciato said.

JJ Glaneman and Ava Hickman, co-presidents of Duquesne University’s College Republicans chapter, said they experienced harassment when hosting a “pro-life table.” Glaneman said students sent messages on social media saying they wish they could “eff them up” and that seeing the table was “ruining their day.”

Sueiro said she’s looking forward to co-hosting an event collaborating with Cacciato and the College Republicans, but doesn’t plan to do so until after the election. She worries that the two organizations working together could be “controversial” among the student body. Although Sueiro said she’s an acquaintance of Cacciato, she doesn’t want “CMU drama” to impact how students vote.

DiLoreto said she’s looking to help students feel more confident talking about politics while getting them more involved.

“We wanted to just make it more comfortable. I think a lot of times talking about politics can get tense, and there’s a lot of stigma about, ‘You can’t talk to people on the other side,’” DiLoreto said. “I feel like I know so many people who are like, ‘I just don’t even want to get started, I don’t even want to learn about it, it just stresses me out.’ If we can make that process for someone easier, even one person, that means a lot to me.”

Spencer Levering is an editorial intern and studies communications and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. He can be reached at spencer@publicsource.org .

This story was fact-checked by Abigail Nemec-Merwede.

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