Students on front row of New Hampshire presidential primary

HAMDEN, Conn. (AP) — Nineteen students at Quinnipiac University are getting a chance to shape history in New Hampshire.

They are spending five days Manchester, N.H., getting an inside look at the political process by volunteering for their favorite presidential candidate leading up to the state’s primary on Tuesday. They left on Friday.

“I’m hoping that they’ll understand you can’t understand campaigns unless you get off the sidelines for awhile,” said their professor, Scott McLean. “They’re becoming more sophisticated on the issues and the candidates.”

The students are part of McLean’s class on presidential elections. Among them are Senaj Mersim, 21, a Watertown native in her junior year majoring in political science and legal studies, and John Hangen, 18, a freshmen political science major from Cheshire.

Mersim is volunteering for former Vice President Joe Biden while Hangen is a Republican who supports Democrat Andrew Yang. Both said they are eager to do the grassroots, shoe-leather work critical to launching a candidate into the presidency, including door knocking, sign holding and dragging voters to the polls.

“You work there and you get to tell people what you’ve done and you’re surrounded by all these people who talk about politics whereas in everyday life you’re not,” Mersim said.

Hangen, wearing a gray Junior State of America sweater, a youth activism group, said Wednesday he’s interested in comparing the differences between the local campaigns he’s worked on and a national one.

“I really wanted to see the dichotomy between state campaigns and their organizations and local campaigns and then this national structure,” he said. “I want to work in campaigns so seeing this perspective of people who actually work in the...