The 2012 presidential election is about 11 months away, but political groups at the University are already gearing up for on-campus efforts.

Despite his age, UNC student Matt Hughes has shown the Orange County Democratic Party he is the man for the job. Hughes, a North Carolina Teaching Fellow and political science major, was elected as the Orange County Democratic Party chairman Monday.

Tonight Student Congress will vote on whether it will show support for an effort to institute a gender-neutral housing option— an issue that will ultimately be decided by administrators.

A new student-led support group is rallying behind conservative presidential candidate Rick Perry.

Ten undocumented immigrants were detained by police Tuesday following a rally about equal access to education in Charlotte.

A recent UNC graduate with nearly a decade of political involvement, Storrow, 21, has decided to run for a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council.

In the wake of a proposed budget cut totaling $483 million in state funding for the UNC system, students are taking action.Four members of UNC Young Democrats travelled to Raleigh Wednesday to persuade legislators against the large cuts to higher education. These four students are part of a group of lobbyers from the UNC organization that will be meeting with legislators in the N.C. General Assembly this week.

At the spring debate between the College Republicans and the Young Democrats moderated by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies, questions about policy were laced with a competitive fever.

N.C. Governor Bev Perdue focused on improving the education system in her second State of the State address — her first to the Republican-controlled legislature — on Monday night.

Student body president candidates Ian Lee and Rick Ingram were endorsed Monday by UNC’s College Republicans and Young Democrats, respectively, after taking part in back-to-back forums

President Barack Obama will address the nation Tuesday night in the first State of the Union speech since the election of the newly divided Congress. Since the Republicans gained control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the November midterm elections — which Obama described as a “shellacking” for the Democrats — gridlock has been threatening to take hold of Washington.

The Young Democrats and College Republicans faced off in a heated debate Monday night, which featured topics ranging from unemployment to the environment, but never strayed far from criticisms and defenses of President Barack Obama.

Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign manager and John Edwards’ chief strategist in 2008, spoke to students Monday night about the intersection of technology and political campaigns.

His speech was much anticipated by members of UNC Young Democrats, who paid Trippi about $10,000 for his talk, said Young Democrats co-president Charlie Sellew.

Trippi raised significant amounts of campaign money through online donations when working for Dean and Edwards and was one of the first political workers to successfully use the Internet to connect candidates and voters.