In Cale Hoover’s AP Government class, students are crafting speeches, shaping policies, and launching full-scale presidential campaigns. Seniors Charles Smith and Will Hendel are on opposing sides of the elections as they are both running for president in their respective groups, the Greener Grass Party and Da’ Fence Party.
These are two out of the more than 10 parties within both class periods that are running against each other in the 2025 AP Government Mock Presidential Election.
“I have been coalitioning with the Reboot Party quite a bit and additionally any other effort going against the Da’ Fence Party,” Smith said. “Primarily through attack ads, we have been making it clear that I’m a candidate with values and am willing to stand up for what is right.”
Each campaign team has their own media specialist, platform writer, vice president, president, and campaign manager.
“My campaign manager has done an excellent job with designing our buttons and other promotional materials. My media guy has been filming many positive and negative ads. The platform writer has been compiling all of the information from our team, and my vice president has worked closely with me to perfect the campaign strategy and get us votes,” Smith said. “Everyone has brought a lot to the table, and given me great advice I would have otherwise not considered.”
Hoover got the idea of designing a student-run election after taking his first teaching position at Hamilton Southeastern. From October to December, students work together in groups in order to perfect, learn and grow in their understanding of the political system.
“I think they get a much better idea of how much goes into these elections and campaigns. They realize the amount of time, energy, and money that go into running a successful campaign,” Hoover said. “They also must understand that you simply cannot make everyone happy, and then focus on how to get people to vote for you.”
Along with the speeches and debates, the team must publish their party’s platform and design a website to advertise their candidate. According to Hoover, this helps the students grow a greater appreciation for the logistics and effort that go into a full election.
”Coalitioning is important to figure out who has similar ideas with you, and I have been able to work with them and get some good stuff done,” Smith said. “I had to learn how to better compromise with individuals that you may not see eye to eye with or that I might not fully agree with.”
The team’s goal is to influence their classmates as much as possible before the big presidential debate and party conventions.
“We will give a debrief on anything that wasn’t clear in the debates or the vice presidential speeches through fun activities and informing people on the issues that concern our party,” Smith said. “It’s a lot less about talking to consultants, but understanding the social dynamics and feel of the room. It feels a lot like stand up comedy or theatre.”
All of their debates and speeches will address the topics of economy, health care, education, environment, immigration and foreign policies between many countries. The project is meant to serve as a model after contemporary presidential elections, with a few tweaks to better fit the classroom setting.
“In theory, it’s pretty much the same. Between the propaganda, many candidates, process and debates, we try to do things really similar.” Hendel said. “We do rank choice voting rather than just picking the one person you want to win, like they do in normal American elections. Since we are all third parties, there are no major parties, and we’re going to see a different split in votes.”
The election will be held at the end of the semester, and they will see which group’s work was appreciated the most by their classmates.
“You spend a lot of time during class, outside of class and sometimes entire class periods to research and prepare,” Hendel said. “You want to look good in the speeches and debates, so we work as much as possible. We’re definitely looking to win this.”
According to Hoover, his hope for the many aspects and pieces required for the project are to instill an interest and understanding of the political system in his students.
“We do need good people in our nation to run for office, so hopefully some of these students would consider running for office, or even participate in a campaign of their own. There’s all sorts of places that we can participate in as our government can only function as well as the people who work in it,” Hoover said.
