Sen. Richard Burr’s re-election campaign launched a leadership team of nine student representatives across North Carolina campuses to promote Burr’s re-election in November.
Burr’s race with Democratic challenger Deborah Ross has become close in recent weeks.
Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College, said the Burr campaign’s presence on college campuses calls attention to the importance of student voter mobilization.
“Typically, student populations have low voter turnout rates,” he said. “If we’re talking about a close election, literally every vote is going to matter.”
Danielle Adler, the Students for Burr representative at UNC, said she initially became involved with Burr’s campaign to stress the importance of the election to other students.
“North Carolina is such a toss-up state in this election,” she said. “This is one of the biggest congressional campaigns people are going to be watching in November.”
Patrick Mangan, a graduate student at the Wake Forest School of Business and the Students for Burr representative at Wake Forest, said a main focus of the students’ efforts is to combat the negative attitudes toward voting.
“It’s very disheartening to see people our age decide not to vote and it’s mostly because of the presidential election,” he said. “We’re trying to make it clear that your senators and representatives in Congress are almost as important as the presidential race, and their actions affect our quality of life.”
Mangan said Burr’s outreach on campuses aims to excite students about the political process.