What Cal Poly students do on election night

This is a cross-published piece with Mustang News, more information can be found here.

For many Cal Poly students, this election marks their first experience of a presidential race while being a college student.

Oftentimes, Tuesday nights are for studying, meeting with friends or catching up on sleep. However, for students like agricultural business junior Julie Lucas, Nov. 5 looked a little different due to the presidential election.

“Election night, you know I was thinking about getting a bag of Doritos in a bowl and you know maybe some guacamole and just sitting back and watching it play out,” she said.

In San Luis Obispo, you can usually find several events on Tuesday nights. But election night caused some places to change things up. 

Launch and Ladder, which is typically packed on Tuesdays due to their dollar beer night, said in a message that they planned to play the election on TV. Meanwhile, Milestone Tavern kept its usual Tuesday routine of trivia and happy hour.

Some Cal Poly clubs also hosted election watch parties, such as the Cal Poly Democrats and Turning Point USA. Political science senior Jordan Schleifer is the club president of the Cal Poly Democrats and said their event went from 6 – 8 p.m. on Election night.

“It’s just gonna be a place where students can come and, you know, grab some pizza, grab some drinks and hang out with other people that are politically minded,” he said before the election.

The Turning Point USA chapter at Cal Poly also hosted an election watch party at 7 p.m. last Tuesday.

“I think just because of how political and heated this year’s election has been, I think it’s cool that people can just get together and watch it,” TPUSA officer Johnny Bray said.

Both clubs stressed that their events were open to everyone and food was provided for all in attendance.