In the days after President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Tufts students, professors and political group leaders expressed a range of emotions and anticipations for the future.
A clear majority of electoral votes, now a total of 312, made Trump the president-elect by early Wednesday morning. The Senate regained a Republican majority while the party in control of the House of Representatives is still to be determined as votes continue to be counted.
Going into the election, both candidates faced a deeply polarized nation, and voters were frustrated by issues such as the economy and immigration. Senior Ethan Putlack, president of Tufts Republicans, said Trump’s promises of change earned him nationwide support.
“He’s a brash guy. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t win. But I think the American people just were so fed up, that they put this guy into office who is a wrecking ball — a bull in a china shop,” Putlack said.
Sophomore Zach Zinman, president of Tufts Democrats, expressed his group’s disappointment with the Democratic Party’s loss of both the presidential and senate races. Throughout the fall semester, Tufts Democrats held phone banking events for North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Members also traveled to Maine’s CD-02 district to canvas for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
“It hurts so much more because of how much effort we actually put into it,” Zinman said.
On campus, members of Tufts Democrats were not alone in their disappointment. Tisch College hosted two “Election Aftermath” events on Wednesday and Thursday where students gathered to discuss their thoughts about the potential implications of Trump’s second term.
When asked about how she was feeling about the country’s future, first-year Isabell Rusitzky said, “I know that the next four years are going to be hard and [Trump is] going to make decisions that I do not agree with … and will hurt people close to me. … But, once we get past him being in office, where will we be able to go to try to continue moving forward? Because at some point we will have to move forward.”
Eva Davis, a first-year, said, “I was very surprised. I thought Harris was going to win. I’m a very patriotic person, and I love this country. I think it’s given me a lot of opportunities and I had a lot of faith in the American people, that they were going to make the better decision for themselves. And [it] made me very disappointed and surprised at the American population. I’m just kind of angry at Americans right now.”
While national polling data is yet to be finalized, exit polls revealed the presence of a significant gender gap and that Trump made inroads with different voter demographics than he did in 2020. Trump received more votes from Black and Latino male voters under 45 this year compared to 2020, according to AP Votecast.
The amount of young voters for Trump also increased in comparison to 2020, particularly among males. Young men preferred Trump by a 14-point margin, with 42% supporting Harris and 56% supporting Trump, according to an analysis from Tufts’ Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.
“One thing I see on campus and in civic events on campus is a sort of liberal-elite version of racial politics where people of color are as a constituency against the white majority. And that’s just not how politics has worked,” Eitan Hersh, a professor of political science, said.
“I think this is a wake up call for a lot of people,” Putlack said, “I hope a lot of people will take this to heart and start listening to more outside perspectives.”
The state of democracy was the main concern of 34% of voters when deciding how to vote in the presidential election, according to exit poll data from Edison Research. 32% of voters said the economy was their top issue, compared with 14% who said abortion and 11% who said immigration.
“I think the [vast] majority of things that Biden was doing was actually helping this country when it comes to the infrastructure bill, the [Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science] Act, the Inflation Reduction Act. … I think the country is actually heading in the right direction economically under Biden,” Zinman said.
Democrats are not only concerned about Trump’s agenda but also those of appointed members of his administration. Curran Holden, a junior and secretary of Tufts Democrats, pointed out that whether Trump will execute Project 2025 — a blueprint for the next Republican president written by the Heritage Foundation — remains uncertain.
“There’s going to be a lot of political pressure on Trump to carry through with these promises. And if Republicans control both houses of Congress, there’s going to be a serious contingent, a powerful contingent, of the Republican Party, pushing Trump to make good on these promises,” Holden said.
Looking toward the future, Zinman said, “It’s time to fight harder. We’re not gonna stop doing what we’re doing. If anything, this needs to be the fuel to make us push even harder, because last time he was in office, we kicked him out. I think we’re gonna plan to do the same thing again. I think this will be the fuel that allows us to really make a difference in the next election.”
