Junior Victoria Houghtalen believed fate brought her to work on the Hillary Clinton campaign in Granville, Ohio this semester.
“There’s one memorial for Victoria [Woodhull] in the United States, and it’s in the town where I’m living right now,” Houghtalen said. “I brought one book with me, and it was Woodhull’s biography. I really felt like that was such an omen.”
Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president in 1872, even before women were allowed the right to vote.
Houghtalen, a Political Science Major and Women’s Studies minor, has worked for the Clinton campaign every break since she has been a student at DePauw. She worked for the campaign in Brooklyn last summer and participated in the Iowa caucus during winter term.
For her Media Fellows internship this semester, she was an organizer in Ohio. Houghtalen chose to work at an Ohio campaign office because she was born and raised in the Midwest, and because Ohio is historically a swing state in the presidential election.
“We can’t hire enough staff to talk to all of Ohio, so we have to rely heavily on volunteers,” Houghtalen said. For the past four months, she had been finding volunteers to campaign for Clinton. These volunteers were going door-to-door encouraging people to vote, especially in the four days leading up to the election.
Junior Lindsey Jones, a friend of Houghtalen, said she hasn’t talked to her much this semester because of Houghtalen’s work schedule. “We wouldn’t have much time to talk because she was constantly working long hours with little sleep,” Jones said. “Despite the sleep deprivation, stressful time crunches, and high stakes for nominating and voting in the next president, Victoria worked tirelessly and passionately for the Hillary campaign.”
Houghtalen made sure that volunteers were trained and had the information they needed to encourage voter participation. On election day, Houghtalen had acquired hundreds of volunteers.
The day following the election results was a difficult time for her office. “It was the most sitting and doing nothing we had done in four to five months,” Houghtalen said. “It kind of felt like mourning a death.”
This past week, Houghtalen had been helping shut down the office and saying goodbye to volunteers. “Everyone’s just a little disheartened and trying to figure out what to do next,” Houghtalen said.
In 2017, there will be two governor's races, so some of coworker are getting back on the campaign trail to support the Democratic candidates. Others are going into nonprofits for causes that may be affected by President-elect Donald Trump’s policies, such as women’s healthcare or environmental organizations. “We all joined this campaign for different reasons, and we still have those reasons,” Houghtalen said. “We’re just trying to find different organizations that fulfill what we’re passionate about.”
Professor of Political Science, Deepa Prakash, is Houghtalen’s advisor and helped her secure her position at the Ohio campaign office.
Despite Clinton’s loss, Prakash is hopeful because of young women like Houghtalen. “People like Victoria and Hillary prove that these [women’s] stories will no longer be marginalized,” Prakash said. “Women are now working in media and education, my hope is that women will not be as marginalized in the future.”
Although her candidate lost, Houghtalen does not feel like the experience was a waste of time. “I’ve personally never been more proud of myself,” she said. “I literally had a chunk of a swing state that I organized, and I’ve learned so much about political science and campaigns with being hands-on and responsible for part of this campaign.”
Houghtalen will graduate in 2018 before the midterm elections, which will prove to be a critical time for the Democratic party. She hopes to continue working in politics particularly for a woman candidate.
She has some advice for DePauw students who are unhappy over the election outcome,
“Find a cause that speaks to you the most and work your ass off for it,” Houghtalen said. “There are so many people that the Trump presidency hurt, and there’s so much to be done. Just because we’re in college doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything.”