Presidential election reveals divided generation: What 14 students at U-M, MSU have to say

The Spartan-Wolverine rivalry is deeply rooted in over a century of athletic and academic competition. But on election night, it seemed both schools were in accord, both of them voting overwhelmingly for Vice President and Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris.

Ingham County, where MSU is located, and Washtenaw County, which holds U-M, were two of just nine Michigan counties that voted for Harris. Like colleges across the country, the two campuses were targeted by campaigns as a hotbed of Gen Z voters.

Despite the appearance — and perhaps the historical truth — of college campuses trending more progressive, a closer look at campus discourse reveals that students' hopes for the election were not the same across the board. The data tells a similar story, with Donald Trump overperforming with Gen Z compared with his marks in 2020.

Students took to the ballot box with a lot on their minds: abortion, border security, Israel and Gaza and even deported family members. Here are the voices of 14 student voters, many casting ballots for the first time in their lives, who felt Tuesday night's election was consequential. Some are holding their breath, while others are shouting in celebration.

Michigan believes in Trump: Why voters say they chose a 2nd term

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan was visited by the Harris and Walz campaign three times during their 107-day flash campaign for the presidency. The campus, rife with politically active students, was teeming with election-related activity through Election Day, with an on-campus voting hub at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

The UMMA, located on central campus, is where Jacob Robinson, a 19-year-old freshman, cast his vote for Trump.

Robinson doesn't quite consider himself political but was excited nonetheless to vote in-person on Election Day for the first time in his life.

"I'm not super into politics, like, I get most of my politics from TikTok. I can't lie," Robinson said. "But (Trump) has been president once and I think he did a good job at it, and Kamala was vice president and I think (Trump) did a better job compared to the Biden and Harris administration."

Robinson said he aligned with Trump on several issues, like abortion and gun control, despite standing out among his peers on a college campus.

"One thing is abortion, I'm kind of split with it," Robinson said. "I don't think it should be totally eradicated but I do think there is a limit." On election night, Robinson watched the results trickle in with his friends, several of whom align with his conservative views, but not all. He said some of his friends have been upset with the results of the election, and others, like him, are fine with the outcome.

"I'm friends with all sorts, so there has been a pretty wide scale of reactions," Robinson said.

Justin Svarc, a junior from Owosso, is 20. Svarc, unlike Robinson, voted for Harris, but he did so reluctantly. It was his first time voting.

"Lesser of two evils, really. I feel like Trump was instilling really violent ideas in people and normalizing violent, ugly ideas," Svarc said. "There are some things I agree on with Kamala but I just hate Trump and didn't want to see him in office."

Merette Carson, a 20-year-old sophomore from Charlevoix, didn't want to see Trump in office, either.

"For me, as being a woman of color, I think she was my voice of reasoning and my hope for society and change and equality and I saw a brighter future with her as my leader," Carson said. "Her running, I think, gave a lot of people hope. And hope was just thrown out of the window when she was not elected, which was very, very sad."

Election night, Carson said, weighed heavily on her.

"It was a lot. It was a lot of emotions," Carson said. "Her running gave me a lot of hope and passion and, almost a reason to be excited for the future."

Carson stayed up all night watching the results. As it became clear the country was going to elect Trump for a second term, she felt defeated and worried.

"I probably won't be considered in a room full of people who are making decisions about my life and my body and my education," Carson said. "And it's very sad ... not being able to trust the people in government to put your needs first and work for people — the common people — people of color, people in school."

Like Carson and Svarc, 18-year-old Los Angeles freshman Samantha Cohen voted for Harris during her first time at the polls.

"I think Trump is just extremely dangerous. I think my biggest thing is reproductive rights. I don't think a man should be telling anyone what to do with their bodies," Cohen said, adding that she was also concerned about gun control and the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

While Trump promised unequivocal support to Israel, which she said she supports, Cohen has other concerns for the Jewish community under Trump.

"I know a lot of people who voted for Trump, like, for Israel things, but him and JD Vance want people to live by the Bible," Cohen said, citing their rhetoric on things like abortion that traditionally align with Christian Evangelicals. "I'm Jewish. I don't want to follow the Bible."

Wade Vellky, a 20-year-old sophomore from Columbus, Ohio, had a lot on his mind during the election season. He studies political science and economics and considers himself a bit of a political wonk. But his list of concerns was unrelated to the Middle East.

Vellky was thinking about the economy and social issues, like abortion. He said he didn’t feel compelled by either candidate, noting that Trump's tariff promises bothered him as a self-proclaimed economic progressive while Harris failed to appeal to young men in her entire campaign.

"I did not like (Trump). I did not care for him at all," Vellky said. "And I did not get any response at all from Kamala, like, talking to young men. I feel like her campaign didn't try to appeal to young men, and the voting data shows that."

So, Vellky split his ticket, voting red and blue in different races. Vellky said he was uncomfortable revealing whom he voted for in the presidential race, but expressed that it was something he didn't do excitedly.

"I sort of closed my eyes when I did my ballot," Vellky said.

Vellky is a member of the American Revival Foundation (ARF), an on-campus organization that blends more conservative social views — "pro-America populism," Vellky said — with economic progressivism. While siding with Trump on most social issues, he wasn't a fan of his tariff proposals and promises of mass deportations.

With a large-scale Republican victory, Vellky said he is "optimistic but hesitant."

Not all students at U-M voted, though. Many students on campus, especially those involved in the on-campus pro-Palestine movement, exercised their right not to vote, like 18-year-old Saja Al-Hagar, a Muslim Iraqi freshman from Dearborn.

Despite Al-Hagar being able to vote for the first time in her life, she chose not to because of Israel's military campaign in Gaza — a campaign the United States has provided billions of dollars to aid.

"I cannot choose between two candidates in which they both fully support Israel," Al-Hagar said.

Al-Hagar was sitting in the Michigan Union, studying for a biochemistry course with her friend and classmate Rasha Hamoudi, also Iraqi, who immigrated when she was 7 and now lives in Ypsilanti.

"The thing that really hurts, even though we're both Iraqi," Al-Hagar said, gesturing toward Hamoudi sitting next to her, "It still hurts to see Palestinian people getting murdered, and Lebanese individuals, because they're our brothers and sisters."

Al-Hagar said the constant din of wartime news makes her emotional. "Honestly, I cry almost every night," she said. And her decision not to vote for either candidate was informed by this, she said.

"I remember Trump saying 'Israel should just get it over with,' and the Biden-Harris campaign has sent so much in money and weapons to Israel," Al-Hagar said.

Hamoudi, Al-Hagar's classmate, said she also dodged Trump and Harris, voting uncommitted in the presidential election and "pro-peace" elsewhere.

"I kind of wanted Kamala to win. I mean, Trump is a womanizer, a convicted felon and he's very Islamophobic," Hamoudi said. She stood with much of Harris' policies such as her promises to expand affordable housing and to protect abortion rights, but she couldn't bring herself to vote for her.

"I didn't vote for her because, like, I felt like if I put my name down next to her name, like, I'm actively supporting a genocide and I never want to do that," Hamoudi said.

On Wednesday morning, Al-Hagar said she woke up, saw the results, took a deep breath and knew it was just another challenge to get through.

"That was honestly my genuine reaction: The earth is still spinning. We'll be fine. We get through many, many obstacles and this is just another obstacle we have to get through," Al-Hagar said.

More: Michigan's electorate has shifted in recent elections. Right now, it's in Trump's camp.

Michigan State University

An hour northwest, another 50,000 help make up Michigan's young voter demographic. The school of green and white, celebrated athletics and sweeping fall foliage house students who have done their research and, similarly to Ann Arbor, hold a wide range of thoughts on the election results.

First-time voter Jake Fulkerson said he was "pumped" about the Trump victory.

The 19-year-old of Rochester student aligns heavily with Trump’s policies and is confident that he will execute on his promises, like mass deportations.

“We're going to do the biggest mass deportation in the history of America,” Fulkerson said. “Get all the murderers and drug dealers out.”

Robert F. Kennedy's potential rise to power excites Fulkerson, too. The movement, 'Make America Healthy Again,' an anti-chronic disease and anti-vaccine campaign led by Kennedy, heralds a better next chapter in America to Fulkerson.

“Robert F. Kennedy is going to get America healthy again,” he said. “We've got a bright future ahead.”

The future doesn't look as bright for Tia Spicer, 21, of Novi.

As a senior studying theater, Spicer said she's nervous to graduate into Trump's presidency, she said.

"As a young person in America, thinking about their future, it’s pretty rough," she said. "The economy right now is catered towards rich people. How am I going to buy a house now?"

Spicer strongly opposed Harris' position on Israel and Gaza. Despite Harris' "complacency" in the war, Spicer said, voting for Harris was "the lesser of two evils."

"Voting third party is just another vote to Trump," Spicer said. "A lot more people are going to be affected under Trump's presidency, both within and outside the country, than with Kamala.”

Being openly queer and watching Trump's decisions to "dehumanize" minority groups during his first presidency, Spicer said, made the choice clear.

"The fact that he has become, again, the president, it makes me lose all faith in society."

Like Spicer, Melina Rodriguez, 21, of Northville agrees that Harris' stance on the war in Gaza was her greatest fault. But that didn't stop Rodriguez from voting for her.

"It's so hard to just think where you have this comparison of these two drastically different people and yet somehow people are too blind to actually consider and think and not choose human rights and basic human decency over, well, this guy who says 'We’re going to make America great,' " Rodriguez said.

As a Hispanic woman, Rodriguez found Trump's success with Latino voters "really upsetting and confusing," even though her father was among the Latino men who voted for Trump.

"I grew up in a more protective household, so when my parents had an opinion about something, I would just kind of go with it," Rodriguez said. "If they believe in something, I'm going to believe in that."

Witnessing Trump's presidency changed that.

In the future of Trump, Spicer worries that his rhetoric "feels very backwards in history."

Ellie Johnson, 20, of Northville echoed the same retrospective concerns.

"Honestly, it feels like we just went back 50 years. As a woman, it feels like the whole country is against you," Johnson said.

Johnson hopes to work in the male-dominated sports industry, and seeing Harris as a serious contender for the presidency was refreshing, she said.

"It was even harder to see her just come so close and fall so short to someone who is, in my opinion, very uneducated and very unqualified for this position," Johnson said.

Like many members of the Democratic party, Johnson was shocked to see the results roll through, America undoubtedly in favor of Trump.

"It's kind of astonishing," Johnson said. "I just don't think that you can be a good person and support someone like that who just openly is just hateful toward so many groups of people. I just don't understand."

Like Johnson, Lauren Turpin, 21, of Troy was surprised by the results.

"I really didn't expect this turnout," Turpin said. "I never thought he'd win the popular vote. That's the most shocking part."

Growing up with conservative family members made for a contentious few months leading up to the election, Turpin said.

And, expecting a Harris victory, Turpin's hopes for a female president were shot down as Trump's win became apparent.

"It's a very, very hopeless feeling," Turpin said. "As a woman, it's a feeling that's all too familiar."

Victoria Escobar, 19, of Auburn Hills didn't place her hope — or her vote — behind Trump or Harris. The sophomore, studying psychology, voted for Jill Stein of the Green Party.

Escobar, who said she doesn't feel strongly involved in politics, said policies from Harris and Trump don't represent her.

"I think they both have good and bad qualities to them, so its very hard to put so much trust in one president and one candidate," she said.

Growing up where family members were "very split," on issues debated in the election, Escobar has found herself in the middle, she said. At the top of her mind was abortion access, a topic that she feels has been contorted in campus- and nationwide-discourse.

"I do agree, it should be a woman's right to take care of her own body, but I feel like people are twisting it to certain extents. You're either exaggerating it or not talking about it at all," said Escobar, who said she is guided by faith in Christianity on the topic.

Another main issue for Escobar was immigration. Following Trump's election in 2020, her uncle and step-father were deported to Honduras. Escobar's family was torn apart in weeks, leaving her mother as the sole provider. The experience brings fear for his second presidency, she said.

"A lot of family members that I know have been scared to be deported," Escobar said. "Those four years could mean that my family is not here anymore."

Like many of her Spartan peers, Escobar watched the race closely with her family members in mind.

"I was very nervous throughout the whole thing," she said.

Nerves turned to devastation for Sedrick Dion Huff Jr., 21, of Detroit, a senior studying political science and pre-law, who spent election season working for the Michigan Democratic Party.

Huff watched the results "second by second," trying to stay optimistic, he said.

"When I woke up, and I saw the results, and I saw the news articles, I was absolutely devastated," he said. "I didn't really want to get up and go to class."

Just two days before the election, on Nov. 3, Huff introduced Harris at a rally on campus in East Lansing.

"I was excited. I was hopeful," Huff said.

Huff is the president of the Black Undergraduate Law Association at MSU. His method of coping is to keep working for what he believes in and supporting the people around him.

Grappling with the sadness of the results motivated him to climb out of bed Wednesday morning, he said.

"Just the off chance of me coming to class with my head held high, you never know if that might inspire someone else," Huff said.

Despite the loss, Huff said he sees only one path forward: Keep working for democracy.

"It's not over. If we still are alive, if the ideal of democracy is still alive, that's dependent on the people to keep democracy alive."

Audrey Richardson is the multimedia editor for the Free Press. Contact: [email protected].

Liam Rappleye is a breaking news reporter for the Free Press. Contact: [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: U-M, MSU students react to 2024 presidential election