{"id":9846,"date":"2019-03-05T14:55:01","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T19:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/?p=9846"},"modified":"2019-03-05T14:55:01","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T19:55:01","slug":"the-election-circus-running-for-president-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/archives\/9846","title":{"rendered":"The Election Circus: Running for President in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Lindsey Smith–<\/strong>Following the circus of the last election, 2020 is shaping up to be more of the same. With 16 people officially running<\/a> and several more likely to run, we have a lot of decisions to make as voters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is also a record-breaking election with the sheer amount of women running in a major political party. The Democratic party has six women in the race so far, that number could increase before the end of 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Valerie Hennings, a\nsocial sciences professor at Morningside College, thinks the amount of women in\npolitics isn\u2019t a huge surprise. \u201cThis is a really exciting time to not only be\ninvolved in politics and to see what\u2019s going on in the U.S. because in the past\nfew years, particularly in the last few election cycles, this is actually a\ntrend we\u2019ve seen at all levels. We\u2019ve had record numbers of women putting their\nname on the ballot, winning nominations, getting elected to office\u2026\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hennings also believes\nthat the amount of women showing up in this ballot bodes well for the future of\nwomen in politics. She says: \u201cWe had a woman who gained a major party\nnomination, which is the first time ever, so kind of to use the phrase \u201cbreak\nthat glass ceiling\u201d in many ways that signals something of that perhaps the\nU.S. electorate is ready to think about and to consider a woman as President of\nthe United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it\u2019s great news\nthat so many people are interested in the position, this can create potential\nproblems for voters. Since the current president is a Republican, it is normal\nfor the opposing party to try and put forth a number of candidates to challenge\nthe status quo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the number of\ncandidates may overwhelm those who are voting for the first time or have\nrecently become interested in politics and are looking for someone to support. Despite\nthis, Hennings assures voters that the number won\u2019t be a distraction, but\nrather a good variety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is important to\nremember is that all of these candidates have to pass several tests over the next\nyear to make it to the actual election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All candidates have to be\nable to fund their campaign and get enough support to keep that campaign\nrunning, so those that run out of money or can\u2019t find volunteers will likely drop\nout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, candidates have\nto make it through the Iowa caucuses as well as primaries in many states. Hennings\nthinks this process is extremely important. She says: \u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily\nthat they predict or indicate who\u2019s going to win the election but that they\nhelp us winnow the field and that\u2019s absolutely important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After these primaries and\ncaucuses, the number of candidates will drop significantly so that the\nremaining people can now begin to establish themselves as the best Democrat or\nRepublican candidate. After the candidates are nominated, they will then change\ntheir tactics to establish their stances on the issues and why they would be\nbetter than the other side.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest drawback to\nthis election so far is that the campaign trail starts earlier and earlier. Hennings\nthinks this is a fair critique, since this means a lot of resources, time, and\nenergy are being poured into these different candidates when less than half\nwill probably still be standing a year from now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a time when politics\nare severely divided and highly controversial, it is important for young\npeople, especially college students, to get involved in this process that so\nclosely affects their futures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hennings thinks that those\nwho are looking into the options should do their research, especially outside\nof their normal news sources. She says, \u201cI think the best advice would be to genuinely\ntake the time to investigate each candidate. Do more than listen to their, you\nknow, 30 second to 2 minute political ads that we see online or on television,\nbut take the time to dig into what these individuals present as options and as\npotential leaders and representatives of us and use that time to compare it to\nyour own policy preferences and your own stances and your own values and look\ninto each candidate and do that internal comparison for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lindsey Smith–Following the circus of the last election, 2020 is shaping up to be more of the same. With 16 people officially running and several more likely to run, we have a lot of decisions to make as voters. This is also a record-breaking election with the sheer amount of women running in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":9847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[203],"tags":[46941,46961,46964,46962],"class_list":["post-9846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-morningside-college-2","tag-politics-2","tag-presidential-race-2020","tag-women-in-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9848,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9846\/revisions\/9848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}