Campus bitterly divided ahead of vote
With only two months remaining until the 2024 United States presidential election, the Rover checked in on the state of the race and the political climate of Notre Dame students.
A recent New York Times (NYT)/Siena poll released last Sunday showed Donald Trump and Kamala Harris nearly even, with Trump at 48 percent and Harris at 47 percent among likely voters. In addition to this lead, the former president boasts a 46 percent favorability rating, a figure considerably higher than in both of his prior campaigns.
Opinions of the candidates were more definitive, however, when voters were asked about who best would handle specific issues. For example, Harris led on abortion (54 to 39 percent) and defending democracy (50 to 45 percent), while Trump came out ahead on immigration (53 to 43 percent), and the economy (55 to 42 percent).
The report comes after what was a tumultuous summer for both candidates. On June 27, 2024, Trump and Biden faced off in a debate on CNN in which Biden’s performance was widely panned as disastrous. On July 13, President Donald Trump was shot at a campaign rally in Butler, PA. He only barely escaped death, with the bullet missing his head by just a few millimeters. Finally, on July 21, President Biden announced his exit from the race after weeks of internal pressure and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement.
Senior Nathan Desautels, vice president of Notre Dame College Republicans, commented on the summer’s events: “Caught up in Trump’s euphoric dual triumph over Biden and death, campaign leadership made some critical mistakes. In addition to picking J. D. Vance—the most unlikeable VP pick in decades—the Trump team failed to anticipate Biden’s withdrawal and Harris’ entrance.”
Desautels continued, “The campaign’s previous strategy of appealing to black and Hispanic voters has collided with reality, as Harris quickly shores up Biden’s losses with those demographics. Ironically, it seems the only one trying to channel the duly needed ‘white dudes’ of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin is Harris; as Trump promises green cards to all college graduates and signals for war abroad.”
By early August, Harris began to consistently lead in the polls, forcing the Trump campaign to try new tactics, such as re-positioning on vulnerable issues like abortion and expanding the base via new allies like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Additionally, the former president’s campaign began a 100 million dollar ad campaign in swing states like Pennsylvania, honing in on Harris’s economic record, support for defunding the police, and failure to secure the border. According to the NYT poll, these strategies may be working: only 32 percent of voters believe Trump to be too conservative, while 47 percent said Harris is too liberal.
Views on Notre Dame’s campus about the election varied significantly. Kate Apelian, co-president of Students for Child-Oriented Policy, expressed concern with Trump’s handling of the issue of abortion, telling the Rover, “This election is very confusing. I don’t know whom to vote for. I don’t like Trump’s recent pro-choice rhetoric, because his pro-life stance was the primary reason why I was going to vote for him.”
Others, however, believe that Trump was right to skirt the issue and that a second Trump term would, in fact, defend the rights of the unborn. “I don’t believe in single issue voting, but until the pro-life issue is completely sorted and resolved, that will be the most important issue to me,” said senior Gabriella Searl. “I will be voting for the candidate that I believe will put the most toward solving that issue, and that is Donald Trump.”
Pro-lifers were not alone in looking beyond Trump’s rhetoric. One Keenan Hall sophomore told the Rover: “As a pro-choice individual on this campus, I will say that Trump’s statements are not fooling anybody. We all know he’s a liar. If your top issue is women’s rights, you are still voting Harris, period.”
Other students prioritized different concerns when evaluating their choice for president. A junior from O’Neill Hall, for example, told the Rover that his top issue for this upcoming election was immigration. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have facilitated an invasion on the southern border. Housing costs are through the roof, fentanyl deaths are surging, and now you even have migrants eating our pets. Enough is enough,” he declared. “Donald Trump will secure the border, initiate deportations, and hopefully end mass immigration into our country.”
An off-campus senior agreed with those sentiments, and also emphasized Harris’s record on crime and the economy. “I mean, this is someone who wanted to defund the police and let the Boston Marathon Bomber vote. On economics, she’s responsible for the worst inflation in decades. My family has suffered financially from that. Now she’s trying to pretend she wasn’t involved by blaming corporations and threatening price controls. It’s just ridiculous, and I’m not even a Republican. I voted for Biden four years ago.”
He paused briefly, and then said: “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this year, I think I’m voting for Trump.”
Supporters of Harris, for their part, emphasized her identity and potential progressive reforms she would implement while in office. “I just think it’s time we had a woman, especially a woman of color, in there,” a sophomore from Ryan Hall told the Rover. “And especially for her to beat a white man who’s spent his life abusing, being misogynistic towards women, I just think that would be very powerful,” she added.
“No human is illegal on stolen land,” a junior from Duncan Hall said of conservative criticisms of Harris’s immigration policy. The student continued, “Kamala is fighting for those who are marginalized, the Latinx Community, the LGBTQ+ community, for the reproductive rights of people who menstruate. I am so excited for her to defeat fascist Donald Trump and make history this fall.”
Regardless of their preferred candidate, most of the students who spoke to the Rover believed Harris was the favorite to win. Desautels pointed to recent cultural phenomena while forecasting a Harris victory: “The zeitgeist is absolutely with Harris. The summer’s biggest pop album, Charli XCX’s Brat, is totally bound up with her campaign memetically. Then add in the memes like ‘coconut tree,’ ‘you exist in the context,’ and ‘unburdened by what has been,’ and you have a viral culture that cares much more about Harris than it does about Trump.”
Junior Eric Gordy added, “The Trump campaign has been disorganized and inconsistent recently, so barring a return to 2016-style rhetoric, I believe Kamala is the favorite to win.”
Several liberal students expressed their optimism for November. “I think that most Americans see that Harris has a really coherent message, and Trump does not,” said junior Ted Buetow. “She stands a really good chance right now.”
Others were more confident of a Trump victory. An Alumni Hall junior explained, “Trump has never polled this well. He’s always been the underdog, and now he’s neck-and-neck. The energy is behind him. People are hungry for change. We’re going to win. And we’re going to make America great again.”
With just two months to go before the November vote, it is clear that election season on Notre Dame’s campus is shaping up to be as exciting as it is controversial.
Shri Thakur is a junior studying economics with a minor in constitutional studies. He hopes that a pipe does not burst in Fulton County on election night this year. He can be reached at sthakur3@nd.edu.
Aedan Whalen is a junior in the Program of Liberal Studies and political science. He hopes to see more bipartisanship around Brat. He can be reached at awhalen3@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Irish Rover
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