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Presidential candidates are lining up to take a selfie with these teenage sisters

Emma and Addy Nozell are determined to take a selfie with the next president of the United States — and presidential candidates seem to be lining up to take one with them.

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The teenage sisters from Merrimack, New Hampshire, have gained national attention this election cycle after beginning a mission to take selfies with every single candidate running for president. They post each selfie to their Twitter account, and they've successfully tracked down almost all of them.

Presidential Selfie Girls
Marc Nozell

It all started when Emma snapped a selfie with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) earlier this month.

Since then, the sisters have snapped selfies with 17 candidates. The only candidates with whom they haven't yet posed: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), former US Sen. Jim Webb (D-Virginia, and current Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Florida), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).

Now that the project has picked up steam, the pair says it is being courted by presidential campaigns who don't want to be left out. Ohio Gov. John Kasich's (R) campaign staff invited the girls to a private dinner for supporters, and on Tuesday they sat in the front row of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's town-hall meeting.

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At an campaign event for real-estate mogul and GOP candidate Donald Trump, campaign aides pulled the girls out of a rope line to take a selfie with Trump. "He was like, all right, let's take the selfie. And then we took the selfie, and then we freaked out," Emma told Business Insider. 

 

With 21 major candidates running for president, the girls picked an challenging cycle to try to tackle the endeavor. But they're not taking any chances, tracking down even the candidates polling in the low single digits. 

The sisters' project reflects the incredible access to candidates that New Hampshire voters are granted every four years. 

"If we grew up in some other place I think I would find it a little weird that you could just go up to someone" who's running for president, Emma told Business Insider. 

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"But since we grew up in New Hampshire all our lives, it's pretty much a normal thing, every election," Addy added.

The sisters — who are, coincidentally, both too young to vote — have become unlikely power players inside the New Hampshire political arena. Addy, 17,  works on the robotics team at Merrimack High School, and Emma, 15, plays soccer. They both swim for the Merrimack High School swim team. 

The project also demonstrates the rising influence of selfies on the 2016 campaign trail. The New York Times recently labeled this cycle "The Selfie Election," and the quick photo-ops have become an vital component of a candidate's interaction with voters.

Of all the candidates they've met so far, they said that former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has the best selfie skills.

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"He knew what it was," Addy said.

 

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