When Abigail Sefcik began her studies at Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU), few students wanted to join the campus Republican Party, and she was quickly voted to become president.
“There were only four or five people in the group. No one else wanted to do it,” she said.
Four years later, Sefcik has turned his back on the Republican Party and endorsed Kamala Harris for president.
“In 2020, I voted for Donald Trump. I got sucked into his void and said some really derogatory things about other people. I also did some things that, in retrospect, are really embarrassing. ” said a final year political science student.
“But after a few years, I decided that what the Republican Party stands for is not what I really value.”
Why Saginaw, Michigan?
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In a very tight US election decided by a small number of voters in a few key battleground states, the Guardian investigates Saginaw, Michigan. The state is a swing state, and its voters will have a huge impact on the outcome of the battle between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Chris McGreal is on the ground in Saginaw in the run-up to the November election, researching issues that matter to voters of all political stripes.
Saginaw voters: What issues will decide U.S. elections?
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Rejecting Trump and the Republican Party was one thing, but Sefcik found little to encourage Joe Biden’s re-election bid. The president then withdrew from the race in July, and Harris quickly became the de facto Democratic nominee.
“I didn’t recognize Joe Biden as a good leader. When I was considering the Biden-Trump ticket, of course I was going to vote for Biden. But we didn’t know what the alternative was. I do so reluctantly because I know that,” she said.
“Kamala Harris provides an avenue for many voters. First, her youth has inspired many young people.”
A recent Harvard Kennedy School poll shows Ms. Harris leading Mr. Trump 2-1 among voters ages 18 to 29. Harris supports Trump with 32% of young voters compared to 64%, largely due to significantly higher approval ratings on the following issues: The climate crisis, abortion rights, and health care. Harris also scored significantly better than younger voters on empathy, trustworthiness, and honesty.
John Della Volpe, head of polling at the Kennedy School, said the survey results show “a significant shift in the overall mood and preferences of young Americans” in favor of Harris compared to Biden. He said that
“In just a few weeks, Vice President Harris has sparked a wave of enthusiasm among young voters. ” he said.
The challenge for the Harris campaign is to translate that enthusiasm into votes where it matters.
SVSU is one such place. The university has approximately 7,000 students. In Michigan, a battleground state that Trump won by less than 11,000 votes in 2016, most voters can vote.
Polls show the former president and Harris in Michigan with a narrow lead, giving the vice president’s campaign the clearest path to victory along with two other Rust Belt states (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin). Student voting could potentially carry a lot of weight in the state, which considers it an important part of the U.S. government.
Leah Craig is campaigning for Harris on campus and registering her fellow students to vote. She did not volunteer for Biden’s campaign, even though she wanted to vote for him. But Harris urged Craig to participate.
“It was heartening, to say the least. I wasn’t all that passionate about Biden when he was the nominee, and it’s almost like we’re having another election like the lesser of two evils.” “But the Harris campaign brought a new level of attention to a lot of issues that people of my generation are really passionate about,” she said.
“We now have candidates who are easier to accept, candidates who are easier to support, candidates who are easier to appeal to young people.”
Many students at SVSU talk about Harris’s relatively young life. At 59 years old, she’s like a grandmother to her students, but her energy and spirit are in sharp contrast to Biden and Trump. SVSU Democratic Party Chairman Noah Johnson also credits a determined social media campaign for attracting young voters.
“A lot of that is due to the big push on social media early on, like when Charlie I saw it work for young people, as well as the coconut tree meme,” he said.
“It’s like a permission structure. It wasn’t cool or popular to be a Biden fan. Students were saying, ‘Of course I support his policies.’ However, it was very rare to find young people who were actively his fans. It was, “I’m voting for him, especially because I like him better than Trump.” But I’ve certainly seen, especially from friends who aren’t really involved in politics, people who are excited to go out and vote for Kamala, even if they’re not doing anything else. . ”
Still, the gender gap is stark, with a Harvard Youth Poll showing support for the vice president is 17 percentage points higher among young female voters than among men, even though a majority of young men said they would vote for Harris. It turned out to be. Sefcik said he saw that at SVSU as well. At SVSU, the few members of the College Republicans are mostly men, while the majority of the College Democrats are women.
President Trump held a rally at SVSU last week, but did not directly address young voters or their concerns, perhaps because relatively few students attended and the former president was unable to fill the 4,000-seat sports hall. There were hardly any.
The student who did attend and said he supported Trump did not want to be named. When asked why not, he replied: I feel that people respect each other’s opinions. I have friends on both sides. But outside, that’s not the case. You could lose your job if you say you’re voting for Trump. ”
Many of SVSU’s students come from rural and small-town Michigan and grew up in Republican neighborhoods and families. Sefcik’s disillusionment with Trump was closely tied to her doubts about her upbringing in a religious and politically conservative household. But she also became more disappointed in the Republican Party as she experienced it from the inside.
Sefcik, who attends fundraising events as president of the Campus Republican Party, said donors expect to hear about how she has suffered at the hands of “woke” students and liberal professors. Ta.
“They want to hear about how hard it is to be a conservative college student and how this system is no longer benefiting them. And to reinforce that, these two But in my experience, it wasn’t difficult because people who identify as Democrats are the nicest and most welcoming people I’ve ever met. “They were very kind people,” she said.
SVSU Republicans declined an interview request.
Two days after Trump’s rally, another crowd of students gathered to hear Bernie Sanders speak in support of Harris on campus.
Sanders struck the right note for a young audience. Abortion rights, the housing crisis, and America becoming more and more like an oligarchy. He spoke about the dangers of reelecting Trump, warning that the world would “lose the fight” against the climate crisis if he returned to the White House.
But Sanders also emphasized that Harris called for universal public health care, or “Medicare for All,” in contrast to her much weaker proposals for drug price controls and more regulation of health care providers. This exemplified the gap between him and Harris.
Some of Harris’ more vocal supporters on campus say they think she falls short on some policies but has other strengths. Although Harris has avoided bringing her race and gender to the forefront of her campaign, Craig said it’s important to some students.
“What we’ve observed around campus is that people in our demographic are feeling more heard and seen, which is also huge.” she said.
Some students see Harris as a break from being raised in a time of anxiety. Sefcik said people of her generation “grew up with the fear of post-9/11, so they don’t know a world that is somewhat safe.” She said President Trump made matters worse by attacking minorities and packing the Supreme Court to strip women of control over their bodies.
Craig described recent college students as living in their teenage years as living in the “Trump era of American carnage.”
“This is all they know so far. The Biden era is in a pretty big hurry to undo what’s been done and fix things. As Harris herself said, she “It feels like there’s a level of despondency, whereas it’s meant to bring joy to people, and it’s a little more positive and upbeat than the same old days. It’s a new approach,” she said.
Still, the challenge of getting students to actually vote remains. There is reason for Democrats to be optimistic on this point. Four years ago, 66% of U.S. college students voted in presidential elections, a historic high, up from just 52% in 2016.
The Institute for Democracy and Higher Education called the increase “alarming” and attributed it to a variety of factors, including student movements against “racial injustice, global climate change, and voter suppression.” Disgust towards President Trump also drove many people to vote.
Harris supporters also note that nearly half of SVSU students voted in large numbers in the midterm elections two years ago. It came just months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and struck down the constitutional right to abortion, and turnout was higher than students in the rest of the state. Saginaw County.
Craig pushed a message widely heard among Democrats that Trump’s 10,704-vote victory in Michigan in 2016 equated to just two votes in each district in the state. are.
“We tell them all they need to do is bring a few people with them. Talk to friends, reach out on social media. You don’t have to go knocking on doors, you don’t have to grab a clipboard. You don’t have to stand out here. You don’t have to do anything super crazy. Just get two people to vote.”
