Fueled by brownies, trail mix and rivalry, College Republicans at IU took to the phones Thursday night to make the most campaign calls in a competition against Purdue University’s College Republicans.
Campaign calling, known as phone banking in the political world, is a tool used to ask voters who they plan to support in an upcoming election.
College Republicans at IU made 1,471 calls, beating Purdue University’s College Republicans’ total of 839.
“We’re happy to keep the competition and tradition alive against Purdue,” said Brian Gamache, chairman of College Republicans at IU. “It’s great that we have such a motivated group of students. We look forward to next year’s competition.”
The first phone banking competition was in 2014. Purdue won that year because IU’s servers went down.
The College Republicans at IU made calls on behalf of Indiana 9th District Congressional candidate Trey Hollingsworth, and Purdue called for its Republican Congressional candidate, Todd Rokita. In addition to the Congressional races, voters were also asked about their preferences in the senatorial and presidential races.
Hollingsworth’s team provided the IU student organization with an office, and Hollingsworth’s wife even made snacks, Gamache said.
Freshman Sai Shastry said he was excited to bring a political angle to the traditional university rivalry.
“The rivalry’s intense, no matter what the activity is between Indiana and Purdue,” Shastry said.
Shastry became involved in politics in his home state of Illinois and said he felt it was important to continue at IU. He said it wasn’t difficult to for him to start campaigning in Indiana instead.
At first, he was only familiar with Republican senate candidate Todd Young, but through that campaign, he learned more about the whole ticket, he said.
“The transition was easy because ideologically, both state have the same ideas about conservatives,” Shastry said.
Although the College Republicans make phone calls multiple times a week, College Republicans external vice chair Nicole Keesling said the rivalry element helps keep phone banking interesting.
“There’s a sense of more urgency than usual,” Keesling said.
Keesling said the rivalry element helped the group work together. Usually, the campaigners compete individually to see who can make the most calls, but Thursday they had to pool their efforts to try and beat Purdue.
Phone banking also helps make citizens aware of the upcoming election and reminds them to vote, Keesling said.
“It’s all about being an informed voter,” Keesling said.
