As Election Day approaches, discussions across campus regarding the candidates and the state of politics in the United States have grown. These discussions have shed light on which political issues students are prioritizing at the polls this year and how students are being civically engaged on campus.
The partisan student groups on campus — Hopkins Democrats and College Republicans at Johns Hopkins University — have both officially endorsed the presidential candidates of their respective parties.
Hopkins Democrats highlighted abortion and economic issues as important considerations for voters this election and also pointed to the recent hurricanes, school shootings and developments in the war in Gaza as drivers of Democratic voters’ concerns regarding climate change, gun control and foreign policy.
In an email to The News-Letter, Hopkins Democrats emphasized that despite the importance of other issues, this election is fundamentally a choice reflecting moral values, and argued that while the Democratic Party has centered around optimism and decency, the Republican Party has fostered pessimism and division.
“Many voters disagree with Democratic candidates on one or two issues, but believe they provide a more optimistic path for the future,” they wrote. “On the other side is a party who directly targets others’ identities and actively undermines our democratic institutions. Perfection is not on the ballot, but decency and morals are.”
In an interview with The News-Letter, Andrew Hines — a freshman undergraduate not affiliated with Hopkins Democrats — explained his thoughts on the election as someone who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris through a mail-in ballot in his home state of New York.
“I am optimistic in some senses but pessimistic in others. I feel like Kamala Harris is a better candidate than Joe Biden,” he said. “We have already had a president of color for eight years and we have already had the optics of a woman being a presidential candidate, so it is something people are more familiar with. But I have met far too many people who have said that they would vote for Harris if she was a man.”
College Republicans at Johns Hopkins University declared the economy, immigration and the sanctity of life as the three most important issues facing Americans today.
The organization highlighted progressive spending and the border policies of the Biden-Harris administration as particular concerns in an email to The News-Letter.
“After four years of reckless progressive spending, historic inflation, and the Democrats' war on American energy, cost of living is up, wages have declined, home-ownership is down, and the American Dream has become out of reach for millions of Americans,” they wrote. “The reckless open-border policies of the Biden-Harris administration have unleashed the worst migrant crisis in our nation’s history, flooding our communities with crime, allowing dangerous terrorists onto our streets, and fueling the fentanyl epidemic hollowing out American families.”
The College Republicans also explained its opposition to the Democratic Party’s current abortion stance in an email to The News-Letter.
“The hard-fought precedent set by the Dobbs decision is under threat, as the Democratic presidential candidate has openly expressed willingness to bypass legal boundaries to reinstate Roe, while the Democratic Senate candidate has vowed to unconstitutionally pack the Supreme Court,” they wrote.
Both organizations voiced the need for more spaces to foster productive civic dialogue. Both groups also indicated that they believe their respective parties are doing a good job of appealing to young voters.
Partisan groups on campus are not the only organizations active in the lead up to election day. Hopkins Votes, a non-partisan initiative within the Center for Social Concern, aims to increase civic engagement on campus and help all Hopkins affiliates, including students, faculty and staff, engage in the democratic process.
Though Hopkins Votes is at work year-round regardless of whether it is an election year or not, presidential elections cultivate a new sense of energy in undergraduate students.
Rishi Wahi, the co-student director for Hopkins Votes, explained the effect of the presidential election on the students at Homewood in an interview with The News-Letter.
“Even when there’s not federal elections happening, there are elections occurring throughout the state and local level. It’s very much a struggle to try and get a culture of civic engagement [and] to get people interested,” he said. “This year? Much more engagement. There is much less convincing that we need to do.”
Common questions that students have voiced at Hopkins Votes tabling events include how to mail in absentee ballots or register to vote in Maryland. As a non-partisan group, Hopkins Votes does not encourage students to vote for any specific candidate, nor does it inform any individual political decisions, such as indicating in which state a student should cast their vote.
Olivia Lowry — a freshman from Pennsylvania — described her concerns with casting an absentee ballot in an interview with The News-Letter.
“I am actually going home to vote in person because of decertification attempts in my state in 2020,” she said.
In an interview with The News-Letter, Wahi emphasized Hopkins Votes’ focus on getting people to the polls rather than getting them to make a particular political decision.
“The Supreme Court clarified that college students are able to choose which community they feel more strongly connected with and register in either place,” he said. “Usually, people are trying to ask for the political inside ball of, ‘If I live in a swing state, should I register here or there?’ Hopkins Votes is not interested in that. We are interested in getting you registered and ready wherever you feel more connected to.”
Election Day programming by Hopkins Votes includes a March to the Polls event and an Election Day watch party in the Glass Pavilion from 7–11 p.m.
Hopkins Votes encourages Hopkins affiliates to use the Turbovote voting resource and to engage with the democratic process by becoming election judges.
In an interview with The News-Letter, Kaitlyn Jung — a senior majoring in Political Science — pointed out that despite the importance of the upcoming election, political engagement must be an ongoing endeavor.
“There are so many factors that make the way we elect candidates not entirely democratic. You vote one time in either four years or two years, but what kind of work are you doing outside of that singular day? I think that is very important but it is not discussed enough,” she said.
