Former president’s election met with surprise, excitement, despair
Donald J. Trump won a second term to the presidency on Tuesday night, decisively defeating vice president Kamala Harris and denying the Democrats another four years in the White House. With just over 87 percent of precincts reporting, president-elect Trump led Harris by a margin of 51 percent to 47.6 percent in the popular vote. In the electoral college, Trump beat Harris by a margin of 312 to 226.
The result marked a stunning political comeback for the former president, who became just the second president in American history to win a non-consecutive term. Trump’s triumph came in spite of the fact that his political career was widely seen as finished after he left office in 2021.
After the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives and nearly convicted by the U.S. Senate. Prosecutors charged him with several felonies on both the state and federal levels in 2023, including in Manhattan, where he was convicted of thirty-four counts of falsifying business degrees. In the past year, Trump faced a Democrat-led effort to disqualify him from the ballot and suffered two assassination attempts, in one of which he was injured.
Nonetheless, Trump and his running-mate, Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio won a comfortable victory, with Trump on track to sweep every battleground state and even win the popular vote for the first time in any of his three runs. Trump also made significant inroads in several states that were previously considered safe for vice president Harris, including New Jersey, where he trailed by just five percent after losing by seventeen in 2020. In neighboring New York, Trump was down just twelve percent after losing by twenty-three points four years ago.
Exit polls showed Trump’s victory was largely driven by massive gains among Hispanic voters, urban voters, and young men. The exit poll also showed that Trump won Catholic voters by fifteen points, a ten point increase from his margin in 2020.
Some of these trends appeared to have been captured in the Irish Rover September 2024 presidential poll, which showed Trump massively outperforming his prior margins with students on campus—especially men and those who identified as Catholic.
Notre Dame students and faculty responded in a variety of different ways to the results of the election.
One Alumni Hall junior, a Trump voter, told the Rover that he was “stunned” by the outcome of the race. “I just can’t believe it. I was at least expecting it to be tight, but this looks like a complete blowout to me. It’s a total rejection of the last four years, whether that be high prices, unchecked immigration, or mismanagement abroad,” he said.
“I hope he follows through on his promises, particularly on cutting inflation and initiating mass deportations,” the student continued.
Another student, a sophomore from Ryan Hall, agreed with that analysis and expressed her optimism about the outcome. “I think that Kamala thought that she could win by honing in on abortion, but that clearly failed as a strategy. People want to know how they’re going to afford things. They want to know how the president is going to advance policies that actually improve their lives.”
“[Kamala] didn’t offer that, and I actually think she turned off a lot of people, especially Catholics, by going all in on these divisive cultural issues.” she said. “Trump did a good job focusing on things that more directly affect people,” she added.
Some students were more cautious about the prospects of another Trump term. One Dunne Hall junior said, “I am very glad that Trump won the election. Yet, it is important for us Catholics to stay vigilant, to avoid blindly supporting all his policies. We must continue to advocate for Catholic values in his leadership and administration, especially on issues like abortion and IVF.”
Others, however, expressed their concerns about a second Trump presidency. A Keenan Hall junior told the Rover that he was deeply concerned that a second Trump presidency would roll back the “rights of marginalized communities.”
“Just look at Project 2025. Trump is an authoritarian. He will strip us of our reproductive rights, ban pornography, and has engaged in vile anti-trans rhetoric,” he said. He blamed ostensible biases amongst American voters, rather than Harris’s campaign, for her loss. “I was always worried that the country would not be ready to elect a black woman as president, and today I am ashamed to say that I was right,” he asserted.
The student also expressed his disappointment that Trump was even eligible to run in the first place. “Donald Trump tried to overthrow our democracy on January 6. The fact that he was allowed to run again after that just demonstrates how the system will always bend over backwards for white men,” he argued.
In a comment to the Rover on the election results, the Notre Dame College Republicans stated simply that “Trump did what nobody thought was possible: make the greatest comeback in American political history. Trump won, Notre Dame College Republicans won, America Won.”
On the other hand, College Democrats Co-President Olivia Anderson told the Rover that the “College Democrats are extremely disappointed in the election results. Once again, we have seen hate win over good policy that centers all Americans. We’ll be here during the next four years, doing everything we can to promote justice for all people—at ND and beyond.”
Time will tell how the second Trump presidency unfolds and the effects that it will have on the University of Notre Dame. The president-elect is expected to take office on January 20, 2025.
Shri Thakur is a junior majoring in economics and constitutional studies. He has decided to not flee the country for rural France in lieu of the election results. He can be reached at sthakur3@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons
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