In the early hours of Wednesday, Nov. 6, former President Donald Trump officially defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to become the 47th president of the United States. With Harris’s defeat, Princeton students are questioning where this leaves them and the future of America.
Polls conducted by The Daily Princetonian before and on Election Day suggested that eligible undergraduate students and community members overwhelmingly favored Harris.
Despite a significant majority of Princetonians supporting Harris, the rest of the country experienced an overwhelming red shift. In a New York Times analysis, more than 90 percent of counties with complete voting results shifted toward the former president, indicating a trend of strengthened support for Trump in 2024 compared to 2020.
Vice President Harris won the state of New Jersey by only five points, compared to President Biden who won the Garden State by a staggering 15.9 points in 2020.
The ‘Prince’ spoke to multiple students who didn’t expect Trump’s victory to be called so early. In 2020, the Associated Press (AP) called the presidential race at 11:26 a.m. on Saturday of election week.
Laura Kahu ’27, from Newark, N.J., attended several watch parties on campus and learned Trump would be the likely winnner at 2 a.m. after Fox News had called the race in his favor.
Her first reaction was disbelief. “I was like, no way. They made a serious mistake, of course, Fox News called it,” Kahu said.
However, after additional networks began to call the race for the former president, the news of a second Trump presidency made Kahu feel more uneasy.
Kahu told the ‘Prince’ she was concerned about Trump’s rhetoric toward women and claimed that Harris’s gender may have influenced how voters viewed the vice president as a presidential candidate.
“This man doesn’t care for women. He doesn’t care about half of us out here. He has an agenda, and he has people who will fulfill an agenda for him, even if he’s gone,” Kahu said.
“If this was any other person, if Kamala was a white man, I think she would have won,” she added. “I think it makes people uncomfortable to see a woman — actually a black woman — at the forefront of this country.”
Francesco Agnello ’28, from Park Ridge, N.J., also noted the distinct identities of the candidates.
“When you’re considering a woman who has dedicated her whole life to public service, and you compare that to a guy who has spent his whole life in the private industry, serving the needs of him and his family, who is now a 34-count felon,“ he said, “it’s like there shouldn’t even be a competition in the first place.”
Agnello described Trump’s victory, along with a Republican-controlled Senate, a potentially Republican-controlled House, and a conservative Supreme Court as “jarring” and “disheartening.”
Maksim Zvolyak ’27, an international student from Ukraine who currently resides in Italy, echoed this sense of worry.
“This election is just devastating, because I’m scared for my family back home,” he said.
Zvolyak drew parallels between Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who he described as a “fascist,” noting that Meloni has faced criticism for praising Mussolini as “a good politician,” even though Meloni has recently sought to distance her party from its neo-fascist roots.
“Far-right regimes rise in Europe, and seeing the similarities between those politicians and Trump, I feel like there are definitely some aspects that could make him fascist,” Zvolyak said.
Noah LaBelle ’28 told the ‘Prince’ he felt like the Republican sweep puts the country on a path towards another four divided years, but he added, “I’d like to think that maybe we can unite under some common sense measures to try to address poverty and to help folks have a living wage in this country.”
For Aedan Fraley ’27, who is from south Florida, the rightward shift in the country came as a surprise.
“I was definitely surprised about abortion,” Fraley said, referencing Florida’s abortion rights ballot measure that failed to meet the 60 percent threshold to pass. “It was really disappointing,” he added.
College Republicans Vice President Santhosh Nadarajah ’25 said he was more surprised at the extent of the former president’s performance compared to his electoral college victory alone.
“I’m not surprised at his victory,” Nadarajah said. “I am a little bit impressed, though, at how much he swung the swing states and also the suburbs in some blue states, in particular, in New Jersey, in New York, in Illinois, and in California.”
For Nadarajah, who is from Cerritos, Calif., this was the best campaign the former president ran out of all three of his campaigns.
“Trump and his campaign, led by Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, ran a very disciplined and effective campaign, much more so than his 2016 and 2020 campaigns,” Nadarajah said. “The Democrats failed to unify around a narrative, and it’s also why you saw a lot of split ticketing.”
With many Princeton students stunned by this election’s significant rightward shift, some are looking to the future.
“This is going to be very hard to accept, especially for undocumented people, immigrants, people of color, and everyone. But there’s always hope,” Zvolyak said.
“The only thing we can do is continue to try to engage in respectful dialogue with the other side to make sure … there won’t be as much divisiveness in our political dialogue,” Agnello said.
Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate Sports editor and News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Justus Wilhoit is an associate Audience editor and senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’
Please send corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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