Political tourists? People travel to US just to watch midterm elections, photos show
Ever wonder how politics happen in other countries? Ever feel curious enough to visit another country during their elections? Some tourists did just that by visiting the U.S. to watch midterm elections, photos show.
Caroline Sumnall, a British woman, chronicled her experience traveling the southern U.S. for a midterm elections tour with Political Tours, she told McClatchy News on Thursday, Nov. 10.
Political Tours, a U.K.-based tour company, offers “expert-led … political study tours,” according to the company’s Twitter account. The company led a “US Midterm Elections” tour from Nov. 3-9 with groups limited to 14 people and stops in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and Virginia, their website says.
Political Tours told McClatchy News on Nov. 10 that it ran two midterm election tours. The 12-person northern tour visited Pennsylvania, D.C. and Virginia. The 8-person southern tour visited Florida and Georgia. The tourists came from Australia, the European Union, the U.K., and the U.S., the company said.
“We have been running election tours in the U.S. since 2012,” the owner Nicholas Wood said in the statement. “Our aim is to give people a deeper and more complex understanding of U.S. politics, from the grass roots up.”
On her tour stops in Orlando, Florida, Sumnall had coffee with a Republican strategist, met Maxwell Frost (D-FL), the first Gen Z member of Congress, and spoke to a survivor of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting, Brandon Wolf, she said in a Facebook post on Nov. 3.
“Invited to join the democrats getting out the vote,” Sumnall posted on Twitter on Nov. 7. In the photos, she tagged Jen Jordan, a Democratic candidate running for Attorney General of Georgia.
“Eating fried green tomatoes at Brad Raffensperger’s election night party,” she posted with photos from the Georgia Republican Secretary of State candidate’s event.
When Brian Kemp won the Georgia governor’s race, Sumnall was in the room to hear his celebration speech. “Great atmosphere,” she tweeted along with a video.
Beyond sharing her experiences, Sumnall also used Twitter to explain — and often correct — misconceptions about what she and Political Tours were doing. The tour group “never” visits events “unannounced,” she said, but is “always invited.”
She described the tourists she traveled with as “a respectful group of mostly pensioners who would like to understand” U.S. elections.
Responding to concerns that the presence of foreigners at political events might create a disruption, Sumnall explained that they “are just learning about the process. It’s political education, not disruption.”
Sumnall is a self-described “political tourist” who also traveled with Politics Tours on a 2016 tour to Ohio where she saw then-President Barack Obama speak and a 2020 tour to Iowa for caucuses where she saw then-President Donald Trump live with a group of U.K. and Australian tourists.
Political Tours told McClatchy News that it has run similar tours in “more than 40 countries... It’s a great opportunity for people who want to learn as they travel and have an interest in current affairs.”
This story was originally published November 11, 2022 at 10:00 AM.
