By Alex Nash
On the evening of election day on Nov. 5, the Center for Social Change and Community Involvement (CSCCI), the Palatine Hill Student Voters Club (PHSVC) and Professor Joe Gantt hosted an election night watch party in Stamm Dining Hall. The Hu Media Lounge was also available for students as a quiet space to await the election results.
Erin Montgomery ’27, active member of PHSVC, participated in organizing and facilitating the event.
“We did a raffle competition where students could color in predictions. We had coloring sheets and craft supplies in the Hu Media Lounge, and we encouraged students to discuss everything as it was happening. We also projected the New York Times’ electoral college map to help keep track of the results along with the livestream of the news, and we encouraged students to follow their home states’ races as well,” Montgomery said.
Along with the many activities offered, free pizza and fresh popcorn drew in a sizable crowd of students following along as the election results steadily poured in.
Rosie Gurnee ’25, the founder and chair of PHSVC, explained that the purpose of hosting this event was to facilitate student dialogue and make students feel less alone in their emotions.
“We wanted to have an election results watch party for students as a way to kind of wrap up our voter advocacy efforts as a celebration of all the work that’s gone into it so far, and also a place for students to come and have an open discussion,” Gurnee said. “I think watching the results come in together, in many ways, is more productive than watching them alone. I know for myself and my friends, we want to watch them together because where the real processing happens is not so much with the watching, but with … the discussion afterward.”
Gurnee also discussed her club’s collaboration with the CSCCI to promote voter education and outreach.
“Palatine Hill Student Voters Club has been working pretty closely with the Center for Social Change for at least the last year because they have actually allocated a student employee position specifically for voter education, voter outreach,” Gurnee said. “And so that’s been super, super helpful for our club, and we’ve been working really closely with them. If you’ve seen the voter registration flow chart, or if you’ve seen us tabling together, those are fruits of our efforts together.”
The last election night party was hosted in the Bon during the midterm elections in 2022. Gurnee explained that changes to the event were made due to criticism of its location.
“We did one in 2022 where we just screened the election results in the Bon, but we got mixed reviews on that, because some people were excited about it and they did want to talk about it and watch it, and other people were really averse to watching it,” Gurnee said. “We felt like the Bon was not a good place to do it, because people need to eat at the Bon anyways, and in some ways, it forces it on people.”
This year’s watch party was crowded with students anxiously awaiting the election results while enjoying snacks, making predictions on election simulation maps and talking to others about their feelings. Nearly all students at the watch party dreaded another Trump presidency and hoped for a Harris victory, despite some dissatisfaction with the latter, given a politically progressive student body.
Evan Jackson ’27 explained that he voted for Harris primarily to vote against Trump, not because he was necessarily in support of her political positions.
“I’m not really voting for Kamala on the merits of anything she’s doing, in particular, as much as I’m voting against Trump,” Jackson said.
Nico Stevenson ’27 expressed a similar sentiment about why they voted for Harris, yet also expressed dissatisfaction with her character and platform.
“I don’t really like her very much as a person, and I very much disagree with her international affairs policies,” Stevenson said. “I think that there’s a lot of hidden background given her past with like the police and as a prosecutor, which makes me uncomfortable personally, but she’s also the lesser of two evils … I think that under an America where Trump wins, it’s going to be a lot more disastrous to organize as a people than it would be under an America where Kamala wins.”
Aria Vilaflor ’27 was especially concerned about another Trump presidency, stating her view that Trump was a fascist and a threat to transgender rights.
“His main scapegoat is transgender people, and as a transgender woman of color, I don’t want all my rights taken away,” Vilaflor said. “I don’t want fascism to come to place in this country, especially as the scapegoat of said fascism.”
Jackson, a classics major, was also one of many students who attended the event. In the early evening hours before either candidate had a clear lead, Jackson felt unsure of what they believed the outcome would look like.
“I got some positive predictions this morning, so I don’t know. But also, the maps are looking a little concerning,” Jackson said.
Jackson, a resident of California, had mailed in their ballot a few weeks prior to election night. They voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“I’d rather have Kamala Harris and still have a democracy than Donald Trump and no longer have a democracy. We can make things better if Kamala Harris wins. We have a long, much longer way to go if Trump wins,” Jackson said.
Montgomery expressed satisfaction with the student engagement and participation at the event.
“We saw a really great turnout from students throughout the night which was awesome to see,” Montgomery said.
“I think there was a lot of excitement as the results started to come in, but that shifted to anxiety later on in the night. As some of the swing states, particularly Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, began to have their results come in, I think a lot of students were following that pretty closely with some anxiety because of how pivotal those states were to either candidate.”
Andrea Salyer, the director of the CSCCI emphasized the importance of turning to the community for support.
“I am really happy that so many people came together,” Salyer said. “I think it’s a stressful time, and so I’m glad that there’s a space for people to come and just be in community and have some fun because I know that this is stressful for a lot of folks. It’s stressful for me too, so it’s just good to see the Lewis & Clark community coming out.”
Salyer further expressed gratitude for the large student turnout at the event, believing that it indicates that LC has a politically engaged student body.
“I was encouraged by this whole election season, and particularly this, all encouraged by the amount of engagement from our students, because there is a narrative in the media that young people don’t care,” Salyer said. “I think that Lewis & Clark students are very engaged, and so there is a counter-narrative that I’ve appreciated and seen among our student population.”
She further reiterated that the CSCCI will continue to support students and encourage political engagement.
“I think that elections, regardless of how they turn out, the real work starts after them. It’s how we continue to be engaged, how we continue to fight for the issues that we care about,” Salyer said. “That’s what our work (at) the center is really based on. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and the coming weeks to figure out, ‘Okay, what’s next? How do we move forward? How do we continue to organize students around the issues that matter to them?’”
Early in the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 6, Republican candidates former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance won the key battleground swing state of Wisconsin, delivering the 10 Electoral College votes that pushed them over the 270 vote threshold needed to win the election. The Associated Press projected their victory at 5:34 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
In the days after the election, a number of students expressed disappointment and concern over the implications of a Trump presidency.
Erin Connelly ’27, an English major who sat in at the election event, found the results of the election unsurprising and felt as though she would not have been elated by either candidate winning.
“I’m not surprised. I kind of went through a phase of despair, where I felt, honestly it was before Trump even actually won, I was just like, ‘Oh my god, if Kamala wins, it’s just going to be stagnated, and if Trump wins, things will get worse,’” she said.
Jackson, on the other hand, was taken aback by the results.
“I would say this is perhaps worse than the worst-case scenario, as I imagined it before the election. Yeah, it’s really bad,” said Jackson. “So really, just a very surprising outcome. And very scary too.”
Montgomery was also disheartened by the limited turnout.
“I am disappointed by the lack of voter turnout and seeing people who chose not to vote at all. I think we have such an immense privilege to be able to vote, and even if there’s not a candidate you fully agree with, it’s empowering to have a say in things, both on a local and national level,” she said.
Jackson theorized that Harris’ loss was a result of her late campaign start following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race in mid- July, along with her lack of real policy promises.
“There’s a number of things she definitely could have done better. Not being shackled to Biden’s policy position and actually being able to establish her own identity as a candidate would definitely have helped. Promising more change perhaps would have definitely helped,” Jackson said.
Connelly interpreted Trump’s win more as a sign of America’s seemingly continual ideological shift farther and farther to the right.
“America is leaning more and more conservative,” she said. “America is so sexist and so racist, and I think that was a major part of Kamala’s loss.”
Whatever the reasons for Harris’ loss may be, both Jackson and Connelly expressed great concern regarding the impact they believe Trump’s presidency will have on various political issues, both domestically and internationally.
“If Kamala had been elected, we would have been able to be fighting on Palestine, fighting over things that are actually very important, like climate change and all these things that the Biden-Harris administration was failing to really address. Now we’re going to have to be fighting for way more fundamental stuff. We’re gonna have to be fighting over abortion rights. We have to be fighting over just even basic democracy,” Jackson said.
Jackson emphasized the shift in focus from progressive causes to fundamental rights due to Trump’s success, while Connelly shared similar concerns, noting how issues important to her — such as LGBTQIA+ rights, environmental justice and the ongoing conflict in Gaza — now feel overshadowed by a lack of progress from either candidate.
“A big one, you know, just kind of in my life, is trans rights and environmentalism and queer rights, and what’s happening in the lives of people of color, people of color and the policing system are big concerns for me. And also, although hopelessly, Palestine — both of the candidates suck in that regard. It was important to me, but I kind of saw that neither of them was going to be getting better,” Connelly said.
Despite the uncertainty that many Americans feel at the current moment, Montgomery, Jackson and Connelly all agree that there is hope the election results will push more citizens to become further politically engaged.
“I have a sudden, strange spark of hope that I’m like, ‘Maybe this will push more people to be politically active. This will make more people interested in this.’ And that goes both ways. Both the left and the right. But I think this is an opportunity, if anything, to find community,” Connelly said.
Jackson echoed this sentiment, sharing a personal commitment to deeper involvement within U.S. politics and various political movements throughout the nation.
“I know I definitely need to get more involved as a result of this. I think a lot of people are also going to get a lot more involved in protests and all sorts of movements as a result of this,” they said.
Montgomery builds on this urge to become more politically active, encouraging LC students to use their post-election stress as a force for positive change.
“I share the stress that so many people have after this election, but I would encourage everyone to channel that stress into action and look for ways to get involved in whatever ways you can. There are so many great organizations both on and off campus that could always use more support. If you take away anything from this election cycle, which I know is many students’ first presidential election they were able to vote in, take away the fact that knowledge is power and it’s easier than you think to get involved,” Montgomery said.
In the days and weeks after the election, community members continue to process overwhelming Republican victories in the House, Senate and Oval Office. While some are still mourning the loss of the Harris campaign, others are mobilizing to engage with community needs, local issues and national reform. Post-election anxiety remains high, with only 66 days remaining of the Biden presidency. Faculty, staff and students alike anticipate major political and social shifts in the months to come.
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