Seniors invite Republican political reps to campus for discussion with students

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On Monday, Sept. 17, University of Dallas senior Paul Mosimann invited Republican political activists to campus Monday, Sept. 17, to interact with students.

With the 2018 elections coming up, Mosimann hoped to increase support for the Republican Party on campus and provide students with an opportunity for political networking.

NRecently, no similar events for the Democratic Party have been organized on campus recently, although this could change in the future.

There were various staff members representatives at the event, including April Lenagham, North Regional Field Director for the Republican Party; Cooper Mohr, a Ted Cruz staff member; and Christina Torre, a field organizer for Republican State House candidate Lisa Luby Ryan.

Mosimann, an economics major, is a passionate Republican and has experience campaigning for Republican candidates. He The economics major organized the event with support from his friend Joe Blumenauer, another UD student who is also interested in politics.

Mosimann got in touch with the representatives, coordinated times and communicated with the UD administration to confirm the event details. He has been politically active for two years, campaigning for several various prestigious Republicans.  

Mosimann already had personal connections to some of the representatives who came to speak to the students. Mosimann met Lenagham and other supporters at a Ted Cruz rally, and she later helped them get in touch with Mohr and Torre.  

“[We hoped to establish] a strong presence of support [for Cruz] from the University of Dallas,” Mosimann said.

The representatives reach out to universities and encourage students to go door-to-door garnering support for Cruz.

When asked to compare the level of Republican activism, Mohr said that the “University of Dallas is the greatest pull from local universities.”

The Gorman lecture room had nearly three full rows of students attending the event, which Mohr said was above the representatives’ expectations.

The campaign officials representatives encouraged students to become active in Ted Cruz’s race for re-election to the U.S. Senate, since his current opponent, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, is proving to be a tough competitor.  

Mosimann said he organized the event because Texas is on track to become a swing state by 2020.  

Besides supporting Cruz, Mosimann wanted to get the UD students more politically active and engaged in the political world.

Mohr brought up multiple ways to become more involved in everyday life: talking about politics it with friends, encouraging others to vote, and giving door-to-door surveys throughout the DFW area neighborhood of Dallas and surrounding areas.  

Mohr said the biggest problem Republicans face in the elections is that people are not voting.

“You have about 30 million Republicans who are going to vote Republican … and you have about 22 million Democrats that are going to vote every single election,” Mohr said. “That big middle, out of 135 million, are swing voters, who vote basically on emotion — on likability. Every time you knock on a door and interact with the residents, the likelihood of their voting goes up 6 percent.”

Christina Torre, aAnother activist who was brought to campus, is a field organizer for Texas House candidate Lisa Luby Ryan, who is running in District 114, a swing district. Torre, Ryan’s field organizer, said that even though Ryan’s her election was necessarily smaller than Cruz’s, it still bears great importance in the political world.

Mosimann hoped that this event would help UD students become personally involved in the political world and that it could encourage the students to recognize the importance of political liberty and become advocates for it themselves.

“It is [designed] to establish good connection[s] for the students who might want to pursue political careers in the future, so it is networking,” Mosimann said. “For those who are willing and able to help with the actual campaigning, it is a training session with tips and pointers for how to become an active part of the Cruz campaign.”

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