In order to meet the final requirements to graduate from the University Honors Program, I completed a Honors Thesis Project during my last year at UNI. Encouraged to explore a scholarly area of interest with the guidance of a thesis advisor, this project required me to compile a literary review of existing data, conduct original research and package the data I gathered in a final presentation and paper.

As the first caucus state, I was interested in the intersection of politics and communications, so I utilized this opportunity to study the success of political messaging among young voters leading up to the Iowa Caucus. More or less, I was in search of what information broke through ‘the noise’ among young, college-aged voters inundated with information leading up to the 2020 Iowa Caucuses.

This truly was the culmination of my honors experience at UNI and I am still in awe of just how much work I dedicated to this project and I am eternally grateful to have had the opportunity to complete such a project. Not many undergrads can say the have been the primary researcher on a large project or publish work that others can access and use in the continued studies in this field.