In anticipation of the 2024 Presidential Election, the political science department hosted a mock election on Oct. 28 in the Thomason Auditorium in the Lee Nursing Building.
The event was small, intending to serve introductory political science classes by showcasing how the Electoral College works and what Super PACs are.
“My motivation was to show students how the electoral college works,” Kyle Morgan, assistant professor of political science, said. “We’re not competing for everybody; we’re competing for a handful of states.”
The mock election saw students simulate what it would be like to work on a campaign and see how the campaign and state funding can influence an election. The room was split into two groups, Democrats and Republicans, with each group being split between those on the campaign and those in the Super PACs. Each side got to put funding into different states with live result updates to try and lead the party to victory.
“For students to play it, see it, do it, adds an extra layer of understanding,” Tobias Lemke, assistant professor of political science, said. “I’ve done this before with high school students. They love it, they get so competitive… It’s a good way of teaching something really weird and complicated.”
With a more interactive lesson, students were given a much easier way to directly learn how this important political system works. On top of that, the aspect of winning a presidential election had students on their feet watching the final results come out.
A key lesson of this event was to show students the different values each state holds and give them an overall better understanding of how the presidential election itself works.
“They can be more informed about what they’re paying attention to hopefully make sense of this with whoever they’re watching with on election night,” Morgan said.