On Nov. 5, State High students and teachers were able to participate in the 2024 election. While most of the student population was unable to vote because of their age, some seniors were able to vote and shared their experiences with the process as well as their reactions at the results.
Senior Malcolm Hummel described his first time voting.
“It was fun, like, to go with my family. I just went with my dad, but then a couple other family members were already there. So it was sort of nice to, I don’t know, sort of have like a common goal towards something. I was worried about the lines, but honestly, they weren’t that bad,” Hummel said.
Senior Grace Jun also had the opportunity to vote and described her experience.
“I did the mail-in ballot, so I just filled it out at home and then dropped it off at one of the drop-offs locations,” Jun said. “I was kind of lucky that I was old enough to vote in such an important election, so it was exciting.”
The importance of this election was on the minds of students, even those who couldn’t vote. AP Government teacher Andrew Merritt shared about the election-related discussions occurring in his classroom.
“One of the big topics people talk about is social security. It’s not for these kids. It’s bodily autonomy and the rights of young people, especially young women. And I sense since last year, the past two years, genuine worry, especially in young women and even young men who have sisters and brothers and moms who are wondering where this is going,” Merritt said.
Jun described this issue as one of the main priorities that influenced her vote.
“It was a pretty obvious decision for me, and it wasn’t really a difficult decision at all for me,” Jun said. “Women’s rights were important in this election.”
On the other hand, Hummel’s top priorities were the economy and illegal immigration, both of which he believed Trump was better suited to handle.
“I did vote for Donald Trump. I just felt like the economy was much better on his hands. [Another issue is] I guess illegal immigration, even though it doesn’t really affect us [living in Pennsylvania], but I feel like in the future it definitely could. There have been many criminals who came here and I feel like, at least historically, [Trump] has been more honest and at least more open about his plans for solving [immigration],” Hummel said.
While senior Griffin Selber didn’t necessarily agree with all of Harris’s policies, he still voted for her, supporting the majority of her policies.
“I voted for Kamala Harris because her values aligned more closely with mine. I agreed with her stance on abortion, and her stance on the economy, social welfare, climate change…I agree with her more on immigration, although I don’t a hundred percent agree with her on immigration,” Selber said.
Senior Ryan Caldwell didn’t love everything about Harris, but to him policy was not the biggest issue this election—democracy was—making his choice easy.
“I voted for Kamala Harris, although if I’m being honest, I don’t like love Kamala Harris as a candidate. There was a lot of other Democrats I would have rather voted for, but at the end of the day, Donald Trump is like my least favorite politician ever,” Caldwell said. “And it was an incredibly easy vote simply because I didn’t even have to think about policy. Just the fact that Donald Trump lied about the 2020 election and is an imminent threat to democracy was all I needed to know to vote for Kamala Harris.”
While Selber didn’t support Trump, he felt like Trump did a better job appealing to youth, specifically young men. According to data from Tufts, 56% of young men voted for Biden in 2020, while 56% of young men voted for Trump in 2024.
“I think Trump probably did surprisingly better [with] youth than he did in the past. He was doing all those podcasts. Like he was on Joe Rogan, and all kinds of things related to that. I think he probably [picked up] I think white men ages 18 to 24,” Selber said.
Caldwell agreed with this, also noting the differences gender played in this election.
“I think Kamala Harris appealed to a lot of young women because of the abortion issue, and I think Trump appealed to a lot of young men because of several issues, like, I think young men kind of reject the whole woke thing and wokeness, and they feel like the Democratic Party has kind of ignored them and left them out of politics for a long time, which is why they flocked to Trump,” Caldwell said.
Hummel believed that Trump’s blunt personality helped him appeal to young voters, such as himself.
“I think what young people would like about him the most is that he comes off as honest. Like, he definitely is himself whenever he’s talking. You can tell that he at least is saying what he believes,” Hummel said. “And it can come off very rude and sometimes I wish he would change the messaging when he says things, but it does come off confident and I feel like a lot of politicians don’t do that usually.”
The Electoral College was decisive, with Trump winning 312 to 226. However, the popular vote was much closer with Trump leading 76,581,025 (50%) to Harris’s 73,972,100 (48.3%) as of Nov. 19. Because of this close result, the election was initially predicted to go either way. Some students were surprised while others believed the outcome was to be expected. Jun had hoped for Harris to win, however, she accepted the election’s outcome and hoped to move forward.
“I don’t know if I was just like naive, but I wasn’t expecting [Trump to win]. I was pretty shocked…Obviously, like, [the result is] not what I wanted, but you just kind of need to live through it,” Jun said. “I think just making sure to like, advocate for things you believe in and just kind of staying up to date with what’s going on and making sure to vote in every election you can.”
Hummel was happy with the results of the election, but he was sympathetic to his friends who may have wished for other outcomes.
“I was happy, but I wasn’t too ingrained with it. I wasn’t gonna be sad [about] whoever won…what I was most worried about after [Trump] won was how my friends would react. I feel like because they’re a little more emotionally invested than me, so I was just hoping that we could still go through the election and be friends afterwards,” Hummel said.
Even though Caldwell voted for Harris, he was not surprised and reacted to her loss by focusing on how students can move forward.
“I kind of had already prepared for the outcome in the previous weeks. More than anything I just knew that now is the time that I need to get more involved,” Caldwell said. “Especially now that I’m 18 and I’m going to college and these next four years are gonna be rough. I think we will survive, but I need to use my voice because I know I can use my voice to make a difference and ensure that we survive and you know, prosper.”
