At 5:35 a.m. on Nov. 6, The Associated Press called the 2024 presidential election for former President Donald Trump — marking the first time in 20 years a Republican presidential candidate has won the popular vote. The result came as a shock to some Dartmouth students — a majority of whom expressed plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
In a pre-election poll conducted by The Dartmouth, 74% of students said they intended to vote for Harris, whereas 21% said they would vote for Trump. For Carys Kirlew ’28, a first-time voter, experiencing the election was both “exciting” and “discouraging.”
“As early as I can remember, my mother has taken me to the polls with her for every primary and general election, so I was very happy that I could vote for a woman and a woman of color,” Kirlew said. “But now, I’m just sad that this was the outcome of my first election.”
More than 1,700 people registered to vote in Hanover — many of them students voting in their first election. According to Dartmouth Civics co-president Beatrice Burack ’25, approximately 2,300 Dartmouth students ultimately cast their vote in person for the 2024 election.
“The election was our Super Bowl,” Burack said. “Regardless of outcome, our goal was to get as many students as possible registered, informed and ready to vote.”
New Hampshire, historically a competitive state, ultimately went to Harris, who won by 2.6 points — her narrowest victory of the night.
Across the nation, however, the seven designated swing states of the race — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all currently favor or have been called for Trump. As votes were counted and states were called, Denise Lee ’25 said she was “surprised” that Harris did not carry a single one because pollsters had consistently predicted a close race.
“It was shocking just because it made me realize how much I live in a bubble — I thought it would be really close even if she didn’t win,” Lee said.
For Lee, who voted for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election and Harris this year, casting her ballot for a Black and South Asian woman was “monumental historically.”
“It was definitely more exciting voting for [Harris] because it’s the first time I can cast my ballot for a woman and especially a woman who is both Black and South-Asian,” she said. “… I genuinely thought that I was going to be out in the streets in a huge celebration because I know that if she had won, it would have been historical whether or not you agree with her policies.”
Kirlew said she felt the election results were “disheartening” for several policy issues — including education, immigration and reproductive rights.
“I fundamentally disagree with having someone of such poor moral character holding the highest office in our country — [Trump is] a convicted felon, a proven rapist, homophobic, xenophobic [and] transphobic,” Kirlew said. “But what’s been the most sad is confronting the fact that people would rather vote for someone like that than a woman.”
Burack said the “destabilizing” outcome of the election “totally changes” how she views her post-graduation “role in the world” as a government major.
“The only thing we can do with this information is go from there and see how we can be of best service to our country, states and localities even if that looks different now,” Burack said.
For some women on campus, the election results are “disappointing,” Emma Lynch ’25 said. Lynch added that while she personally is “dissapointed” with the election outcome, she is “not surprised.”
“The women that I’ve been around, to them, [the election results] feels more existential,” she said. “They now don’t feel like they can apply for jobs in certain states because they have fewer rights in some states than others.”
Lynch also noted, however, that some other women are “satisfied” with the election results because campus is not “one-sided.”
“There is a broad assumption that everybody is disappointed on campus and I don’t think that is true,” Lynch said. “I think there are plenty of people on campus that are happy.”
Lynch said she “hope[s]” that students with opposing viewpoints talk to each other and have “productive” conversations.
“I think it would be helpful to understand what drove people to vote the way that they did,” Lynch said.
Colin Jung ’28 said he voted for Trump because he supports the former President’s vice presidential choice, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. To Jung, selecting Vance takes America “away from a kind of neoliberal orthodoxy.”
“I think [Trump’s] selection of JD Vance suggests a direction he’d like to take the GOP, and it’s a direction I very much endorse … towards a more substantive vision of governance [and] a more robust exercise of the executive power,” Jung said.
Jung cited what he called “multiple derogatory” statements from Harris about Catholics as a reason for choosing Trump. Jung added that Harris “refused” to attend the Al Smith dinner, which fundraises for Catholic charities. Harris is the first major party nominee to decline their invitation to attend the dinner since 1984, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“[Harris’s] insistence on her absolute support for abortion and making that the main issue of the campaign is very distasteful to me,” Jung said.
Jung said Trump’s most “significant” contribution to U.S. politics was ending the “Cheney-Bush wing of the [Republican] Party.”
“That group of people is now leaning towards the Democrats, [and] the political cleavage in the U.S. is no longer between one brand of liberalism and another brand of liberalism,” Jung said.
Independent Alejandro Menendez ’27 said he voted for Trump because he is “anti-war” and supports “Trump tax cuts” and proposed tariff increases.
“I feel like in the last four years, we’ve seen a definite increase in war across the world,” Menendez said. “One of the things that I really give credit to Trump for was having the ability to dialogue with foreign leaders that may be hostile to the United States.”
Menendez said he is “optimistic” about the future of Trump’s administration.
“I think that we will see changes in the fabric of American society, but very slow ones, very gentle and small ones that will take very many years to come into place,” Menedez said.
Dartmouth Conservatives president Alexander Azar III ’25 declined to answer “personal questions” about the party he voted for but expressed his “hope” for the country to find “community.”
“I think protest is healthy, and I think expressing your dissatisfaction in constitutionally protected ways is also healthy,” Azar said. “So I just really hope that we can again have a positive community going forward.”
