By Kayla Mar, 2026 CLA Intern
After a whirlwind of an evening, would you mosh in front of your elected officials? Apparently for CLA’s 2026 cohort, the answer is an astounding yes. As the votes were tallied and results announced, the nerves and exhaustion melted off our bodies into a celebratory euphoria. But this feeling could only exist after an arduous 10 hours of campaigning to an audience not always receptive to being sold on a mock election.
In a plaza full of elected officials, I quickly realized just how consistent voting behavior can be. Many people do not vote solely on policy. Politics is an arena where feelings champion the hearts and minds of voters. I assumed this would be different while canvassing the elected officials and community leaders buzzing around Chapman Plaza, but as I interrupted yet another tabletop conversation, it became clear that the policy issues my team and I fussed about for a month straight were perhaps less important. How we talked to voters, how we spoke about our candidate’s approach to governance, how we will address an individual’s most pressing concern, how people felt looking at our pamphlet at first glance — that is how you run an effective campaign.
For two candidates with seemingly identical policy platforms, I did not know what to anticipate leading up to the mock election. I read and reread the candidate profiles trying to find the best words to differentiate the two and spoke at length with the team to shape our candidate into the most concise language.
I found a lot of my time was spent explaining what the County Executive position is and how it came to be. There was mild confusion about whether the County Executive was a real position, whether this was a real election, and whether I was a real college student. But at the end of the day, I found the educational and research impetus of this mock election the most gratifying. To be the person that explains a role that will dramatically reform California politics to people for the first time made all the hard work over the past month worth it. Until LA County knows what’scoming onto their ballots in 2028, I can rest my canvassing-mock-election hat.