President-elect Donald Trump won the 47th Presidential Election by almost 90 electoral college votes. The race was extremely close and came down to the seven battleground states that played a key role in swinging the election in Trump’s favor. The states were the following: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. These states, notorious for switching between Democratic and Republican, boast a combined 93 electoral votes, the difference between a victory for one of the candidates. Trump was able to sweep all seven states this election despite his loss of 6 out of these 7 states in the 2020 election. Pennsylvania is arguably the most important swing state having the most electoral votes for a swing state with 19 votes. I had the chance, with a couple other friends in the Clinton senior year class, to travel down to Philadelphia to canvas for Kamala Harris on November 5th, election day with the Democratic National Party. I decided to interview Nina Lichtenberg on her experience of democracy in action. 

I asked Nina to give me a summary of her general experience in Philadelphia, to which she responded that it was very inspiring. Moreover, she added that the in-person nature of canvassing made her realize how important it is to advocate for what you believe in. Trump’s win comes at a time of great uncertainty, with plans like Project 2025 threatening once-protected organizations like the Department of Education as well as protected rights like the right to abortion and IVF, among others. When I asked Nina to explain a little bit about her approach to canvassing, she explained the mechanics behind Kamala Harris canvassing operations. It all starts with canvassing sites that are set up in different neighborhoods, specifically those within the swing states. This is considered the home base where check-in and training occurs, and was the first stop for all of us. We utilized the MiniVAN app, a system that integrates voting records with provided personal data so canvassers know where to hit. Despite common misconceptions, canvassing isn’t an attempt to change a person’s political party. One goal of canvassing is to get registered voters of your own political party to go out and vote. So in our case, since we were canvassing for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, we only went to the houses of registered Democrats to encourage them to go out and vote on election day. However, there is a broader purpose of canvassing with some reasoning being grassroots fundraising, community awareness, membership drives, and more

Nina ended by saying, though the experience was difficult, it was incredibly rewarding to be a part of such a large cause. As High School seniors, to be given such an amazing opportunity to fight for our future and see first-hand the complex yet fascinating nature of a political campaign, has provided us with lessons that we will take on with us long after we graduate. If this experience showed us anything, it is that we should always fight for the rights we deserve. And as Kamala Harris would say, “When we fight, we win”.