Members of the Penn Democrats went door-to-door Halloween weekend not to trick-or-treat, but to canvass.
A total of 13 students volunteered on Saturday for the reelection of New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and on Sunday for the election of Chris Asplen for Bucks County District Attorney.
“Corzine is the highest-profile race in the country right now [and] Asplen is a fantastic DA candidate,” said Penn Dems Political Director and College senior Adrienne Lee Benson, explaining the reason Penn Dems chose to volunteer for those campaigns.
The volunteers canvassed from house to house, reminding people to vote on Tuesday.
On Sunday, the students were joined by Asplen himself.
“When you develop a personal relationship, it always makes a difference,” College sophomore Ben Brockman, a Penn Dems member who volunteered for Asplen, said of the candidate’s involvement in canvassing for his own campaign.
The volunteers worked from noon to 5 p.m. in Cherry Hill, N.J., on Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Bensalem, Pa., on Sunday.
The Sunday volunteers canvassed during the first half and dropped literature during the second so they wouldn’t disturb people watching the Philadelphia Eagles football game, Brockman said.
Asplen worked on the campaign to elect Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) in 2008, with which Penn Dems was involved, so the organization reciprocated the favor, Lee said.
Corzine leads his Republican challenger, Christopher Christie, 43 percent to 38 percent, according to an Oct. 28 Quinnipiac University poll.
This marks the first time in five months that Corzine has been ahead in the polls.
Asplen, an expert in DNA technology, faces off against Republican David Heckler, a former judge.
Brockman, who also volunteered for Asplen over the summer, said the Penn Dems’ canvassing will definitely make a difference in the upcoming election.
“I’m not sure [a lot of the people we talked to] would have gone to the polls if we hadn’t spoken to them directly,” he said.
Brockman himself is from Bucks County, but he stressed that it’s important for the group to get involved in races outside of Philadelphia even if its members are not from those areas themselves.
“The role of College Democratic and Republican groups [is] to support their cause,” he said, “whether it’s in their own backyard or somewhere else.”
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