Fallout on Syracuse campus after a contentious election

In the aftermath of the 2024 Presidential Election, views from the hill (both in Syracuse and Washington D.C.) are looking tense. Speculation season is in full swing to figure out what the country will look like in the next four years. 

This tension is why we at Orange Pulse decided to run a follow-up poll to our pre-election survey, asking students how they felt following the 2024 Presidential Election on November 5th. We asked students who they voted for, if they were surprised, what issues they find most important for the next four years and more.

Students were shell-shocked

The national voting margin swung strongly toward Donald Trump compared to the 2020 election, and many students were stunned by the results. Out of 67 voting respondents, 65 (97%) said that they voted for Kamala Harris, and 54 out of the 78 total respondents said they were surprised by the election results. 

In retrospect, SU senior Anny Poltinnikov was surprised by the results, believing she was part of a liberal echo chamber.

“It was a huge wake-up call for me personally to just dig deeper into what’s been happening because I’ve been surrounded by liberal media for so long,” she said. 

Poltinnikov believes she became a part of the echo chamber through social media. 

“Obviously your TikTok ‘For You’ page just curates the things that you like,” Poltinnikov said.  “So I’m trying to get away from that and read the facts rather than opinions.”

Another SU student, junior Jamie Morris, voted for Kamala Harris but was not surprised by the result because she knew friends and family who voted for Trump. 

“There were a number of people that I knew who voted for Trump, and as optimistic as I tried to be, I didn't want to get my hopes up too much,” Morris said. 

She was surprised, however, at the decisiveness of Trump’s victory. 

“I was really surprised to see some states that I thought would be bluer than normal were just not,” Morris said.

Abortion and the economy are top of mind for SU students

When students were asked what they believed were the most pressing issues for the next few years, abortion and the economy stood out from the rest. Abortion was chosen in roughly 24% of responses, while the economy followed in second at around 22%. For the ‘other’ responses, common answers were education, preservation of democracy, and women’s rights. 

Morris, who selected ‘other’ and responded with “women’s rights,” says she responded as such because of media perceptions of Harris. 

“One of the biggest reasons people didn’t vote for Kamala was the fact that she was a woman, or the color of her skin, [and that] really frustrated me,” Morris said. “I think you should be looking at policy as opposed to how someone presents themselves.”

Morris also said that concerns over Trump’s handling of women’s rights played a key role in her decision. 

“I don’t know a whole lot about international affairs or taxation, that part I’m not as educated on, and I regret that I’m not,” Morris said. “My focus is mainly on women’s rights because I feel the most personally affected by it.”

Students are motivated to be involved in politics

Given the large majority of the respondents voting for Kamala Harris, 60.25% of responding students also said that they are either ‘motivated’ or ‘very motivated’ to stay involved in politics after the election. 

Poltinnikov says that she has “never felt more motivated in [her] entire life about anything.” 

She’s even changed her spring schedule to educate herself more on unfamiliar issues, adding a political science class on the economy to her course load.

“This is the time to do it. Right now is the time to sit and learn so we can come back even stronger and we can win next time,” Poltinnikov said.

Prior to the election, Morris was not as motivated to involve herself in politics. 

“I don’t think that [politics] should be a huge part of your day-to-day conversations with people,” Morris said. “I try to avoid conversations about politics as much as possible because I don’t like being angry.”

Since the election, however, her motivation has increased. 

“Trump’s been coming out with who he wants to fill his cabinet with. It’s really difficult to see what the possibilities of the future could be and it makes me more motivated to physically be involved as opposed to just posting on my story about it and voting,” she said.

So what are the views from the hill? We now know that speculation season will only keep ramping up until Trump takes office and starts enacting his policies. Whatever happens, it seems SU students will continue to keep themselves informed.