Senior Andrew Montgomery spent long weeks preparing for Michigan Republican state senator Patrick Colbeck’s reelection. In one of the most competitive races in the state, Colbeck narrowly defeated Democratic opponent state Rep. Dian Slavens, garnering 52 percent of the vote to win a seat in Michigan’s 7th district.
Although not all served as campaign managers like Montgomery, several Hillsdale College students spent their summer working for outside organizations and political campaigns to elect Republican politicians in this year’s midterm elections.
Montgomery worked 60 to 70 hours a week on Colbeck’s campaign during the summer and 20 to 50 hours a week since the beginning of the fall semester.
“As a campaign manager your job is to make sure everything gets done,” Montgomery said. “Everything from fundraisers to knocking on doors to putting up yard signs. Coordinating volunteers. Maintaining relationships with the media and state party. It’s a bottomless pit—you can always do something more.”
Although Montgomery said he loved working for the political campaign, he plans to leave the campaign trail to pursue professional interests in business and project management after graduation.
After alumna Melika Willoughby graduated from Hillsdale with a politics major last May, she traveled to Kansas to work as the social media director for Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s campaign.
“As a young person right out of college a campaign always has more that needs to be accomplished than it has people to execute tasks,” Willoughby said. “People are stretched thin. They’re going to have to trust you and you have an opportunity to prove yourself.”
In the final days before the election, Willoughby performed all of her normal duties—press releases, pushing social media content—and also made about a thousand phone calls every day.
It was worth it. Brownback triumphed in the polls, winning 50 percent of the vote to defeat Democratic opponent Paul Davis and securing a second term as governor of Kansas. He is the second Republican governor of the Sunflower State to win reelection in 50 years, an accomplishment Willoughby attributes to his record of proven leadership, ability to articulate policy initiatives, and honesty as a candidate.
In one of Election Day’s upset House races, voters in Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district voted to replace longtime Republican Rep. Lee Terry with Democratic state Sen. Brad Ashford.
Ian Swanson, a 2014 Hillsdale College graduate with a political economy major, worked as Terry’s deputy field director in the months leading up to the election.
“He had a good record for 16 years in Congress and was even the big leader on the Keystone Pipeline,” Swanson said. “Despite the fact that Lee lost, there was still some diamonds in the rough. On Election Day, the team was sitting in the war room and we watched as House Democrats around the country were going down.”
The election results have not changed Swanson’s desire to work in politics and eventually run for political office himself.
“The things I learned at Hillsdale, I’m putting to use every day at my job,” he said.
