'Noles to the Polls: FSU Students March to Vote Alongside Jeremy Matlow and PJ Perez
College Democrats at Florida State led a procession from Westcott Fountain to the Student Union on Oct. 29, where Tallahassee mayoral candidate Jeremy Matlow and commission candidate PJ Perez cast their midterm ballots with student voters.
Florida State students turned an early-voting push into a march this week. The College Democrats at FSU led a 'Noles to the Polls procession on Oct. 29 from Westcott Fountain to the FSU Student Union alongside the campaign of Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Angie Nixon, and two Tallahassee candidates joined the students to vote: mayoral candidate Jeremy Matlow and City Commission Seat 3 candidate PJ Perez.
Organizers said the procession was built to move students who had not yet voted into the line. An Instagram reel posted by an organizer credited the march with a net of 120 Democratic votes in 40 minutes — the campaign's own count, offered as a measure of how much turnout a single campus event can produce in a county where, as FSU News reported, registered Democrats number 88,016 against 54,604 registered Republicans.
Speakers at the event raised the affordability pressures facing first- and second-generation immigrant students, among them FSU public health major Jennifer Giraldo. The student vote matters in Tallahassee's city races as well as the Senate contest: Leon County's early voting ends Sunday, Nov. 1, and every campus ballot cast this week is one the campaigns do not have to chase on Election Day, Nov. 3.
