Although the 2024 Presidential election is long past, students in AP United States Government and Politics are holding an election of their own. Students were tasked to pick a candidate that met the requirements in Article II of the constitution, and then attract voters to pick them for president.
For campaign manager, senior Michelle Quan, a mock election is a great exercise of navigating hardships and applying material from textbook to classroom.
“It was honestly really challenging because we had so many criterias we had to meet, just like a real campaign,” Quan said. “People don’t realize all of the laws you have to follow, how many people are involved, and the sheer amount of research that needs to be done. And on top of all that, at the end of the day, you could still lose.”
Students were given roles within the campaign to make sure they were hitting all corners of the politics unit. The roles included campaign managers, research analysts, policy developers, media strategists, and public relations managers.
“I was the public relations manager and I had to create a real yard sign for this campaign,” senior Sophia Hung said. “Those blue and red signs with all the stars and stripes? Yeah, we had to do that and it had to be unique to our policies and candidates.”
This project wasn’t just limited to the government classroom in C115. Students and faculty at The Nest all had the opportunity to fill out questionnaires and polls for the research guru to analyze.
“So we had a very thorough and as bias-free as possible poll made, which we then sent out to a whole bunch of teachers and posted on instagram,” senior Rishub Rathod said. “It was kind of cool to see what people think even though it was all anonymous. I also got to use some of the statistics analyzing skills from my AP stats class.”
Students then had to give a 12 to 15 minute presentation and were penalized for going under and over the allotted time.
“The presentation was somewhat difficult because out campaign was so information packed,”
Quan said. “We did end up going over by a little bit, but making sure we were getting out all of the required information was even more challenging.”
At the end of presentations, the class voted on who would be their president.
“Our candidate was Matthew McConaughey but the other team’s candidate, Tony Stark, won,” Rathod said. “It was kind of disappointing, but at the end of the day we’re all winners.”
