Senior Emma Darcy, a double major in political science and classics, was hesitant to join the Colgate College Republicans at first. Today, she presides over the club as president.

Darcy, who grew up in Hillsborough, N.J. and attended Hillsborough High School, recalls that she did not join any political clubs or have any related prior experience before arriving at Colgate.

“My high school didn’t have any political clubs until my senior year there and, even then, we didn’t have any sort of Republican club. The closest thing to College Republicans that I was involved in in high school was debate, which was a blend of Model UN and Model Congress,” Darcy said.

Even after her arrival at Colgate, Darcy still did not initially join any political clubs despite her draw to political science — that is, until she found encouragement from her peers in some of her political science classes. 

“I was hesitant to join College Republicans at first. Being on a college campus, many people are not very keen on more conservative opinions, and I had planned on just keeping my political beliefs to myself,” Darcy said. “However, I met a lot of my friends through my political science classes, and some of them were members of College Republicans and encouraged me to go to a meeting with them just to see what it was like.”

Attending one meeting turned into attending another, and then another. Darcy continued to be drawn back to the club, and soon enough, she found herself an active member of it.

“I ended up wanting to be more involved in the club because everyone who attended meetings had a really wide range of opinions on all sorts of issues,” Darcy said. “It was refreshing to be in a space where we could all talk about our thoughts and opinions freely without judgment.”

Three years later, Darcy has ended up leading a club she never even thought she would join, which she says has allowed her to give a voice to conservative opinions on an otherwise liberal campus. In addition to being the club’s president, Darcy is involved in and holds positions in a variety of other organizations on the Colgate campus, including Pre-Law Society co-President, the Student Government Association Chief of Staff and member of Delta Delta Delta.

Under her leadership, the College Republicans club has been involved in a number of activities offering members unique opportunities, ranging from hosting discussions with former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan about the importance of bipartisanship to having members work with Representative Claudia Tenney’s congressional campaign via phone banking. 

“In the future, we’d like to host more speakers and work with local political candidates,” Darcy said.

As a political science major, and combined with her experiences as a member and president of the club, Darcy has come to understand the importance of voting. 

“Voting is incredibly important. A lot of the time, people think that their vote doesn’t count. Having worked on a campaign in this congressional district, the importance of voting is really evident,” Darcy said.

Darcy worked on Tenney’s campaign beginning in June 2020 and through the election in November. By the end of the election, Tenney was leading in the polls by around 100 votes, which is considered a thin margin. A judge had to decide the winner between Tenney and her opponent, former Representative Anthony Brindisi — and ended up giving Tenney the win.

“Everyone always tells you close to election day that voting is important and that every vote counts, but it’s difficult to actually realize that as truth until you vote in a really close and contentious election. In presidential elections, where hundreds of millions of people vote, it seems like your individual vote is insignificant. However, if you reside in a swing state, the weight of your vote seems a lot heavier. The truth is that each vote counts equally, regardless of the political climate of where you are voting,” Darcy said. “Every vote does count.” 

After graduation, Darcy plans to attend law school and pursue a career in military and constitutional law.