The diversity of students’ backgrounds and interests is reflected in the diversity of their political beliefs. While media sources often analyze polls in order to gauge the interests of young voters, it is relatively rare to see the views of students juxtaposed through structured interviews. The HPR took on this challenge, intentionally speaking to several students with diverse political views. Here are the responses from Susan Wang ‘17 (President of the Harvard Democrats), Declan Garvey ‘17 (member of the Harvard Republicans), Grace Chen ‘19 (Partners in Health member who has met many of the presidential candidates), Carla Troconis ’19 (Associate U.S. Editor for the HPR), and Ben Porter ‘19 (a politically engaged freshman who volunteered to voice his views).
To what extent do policy differences between the candidates matter to you, versus other factors like character, integrity, and electability?
Susan: “For me, policy differences are the main thing. I think obviously things like character, electability, are really important, especially considering who the Republican candidates are; we really want a candidate that we think can beat Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. But what they say they want to do, and how they want to do it- I think those factors are really important.
Declan: “This cycle is definitely different from cycles in recent memory. I would say that policy proposals probably matter the most to me as opposed to character. I think that ultimately, policy matters a lot, but you can tell a lot about a person from their character. It’s got to be a strong balance of policy, character, and electability.”
Grace: I’d say policy is probably the most important, because as president, this candidate would have significant political capital to use to influence Congress and legislators; that’s the most direct impact that they’ll have on our country. I would say that things like character and integrity definitely still matter, although they’re harder for us to get a good grip on, just because the way the media portrays things, it’s hard for us to see what a person’s character is really like.
Carla: “For me, policy differences are pretty important. As a Democrat, it’s important for me to see policy differences because at least for Hillary, there have been a lot of changes that she’s made on her policies. Character’s also important. One of the reasons I wouldn’t vote for Trump is not just because his policy is horrible but because he’s a flaming racist, and that’s a character thing. But, I would say that policy is foremost and character and other aspects are behind that, but not by a lot.”
Ben: “Policy difference is the biggest consideration for me. But, I think that’s not generally the case for this election cycle.”
Can you name a few issues in which the candidates have rather different proposals?
Susan: “I think their approach to how they want to regulate Wall Street is pretty big. I was reading an article yesterday where the New York Daily News interviewed Bernie Sanders about the steps he wants to take. I think that we see a pretty sharp difference between what he thinks is feasible—he wants to break up all the big banks almost immediately when he steps into the administration. Hillary Clinton wants to take it a little bit slower. I think that’s pretty key. I think something that has been kerfuffled over is gun legislation, especially because Bernie Sanders comes from Vermont, where historically, gun laws have been less of a hot topic, whereas Hillary Clinton has more of a stronger stance. I mean not to say that Bernie Sanders is soft on gun violence or is pro-guns, but I think that his record is a little different. I also think that on foreign policy, obviously Hillary Clinton used to be Secretary of State, and so she has a different take on foreign policy than Bernie Sanders does.”
Declan: “The most drastic one this cycle has been immigration; Trump kind of made it a keystone of his campaign. You saw candidates like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio who would support an immigration reform bill with a path to citizenship, whereas some candidates have made outrageous proposals like to deport eleven million people regardless of status or criminal activity. So that has been divisive in the Republican Party, as has been free trade. There’s been a surge of trade protectionism and mercantilism. That’s kind of been championed by Trump to some extent. Other candidates are more forward-looking, not wanting to hold onto manufacturing jobs, but rather help prepare people who have lost their jobs in sectors like service.”
What issues are uniquely important to you as a college student, and how would your preferred candidate impact this issue if elected?
Susan: “I think the job market is pretty important to me when I graduate college. As a female, the issue of women’s reproductive health rights is really important to me. Things like reducing the rich-poor gap and income inequality, are just as important…it seems wrong or unjust that somebody who didn’t have the same opportunities that I had is not going to be able to even support a family.”
Declan: “The most important issues are probably those of economic growth. That would solve a lot of problems that we have seen being exposed in this cycle. Trump has brought up the issue of people in the middle class who are feeling the effects of globalization and immigration, but rather than trying to scapegoat this issue on immigration or globalization, I think there’s a lot our country can do with tech policy, and certain incentives to create economic growth. Something I really liked in Marco Rubio’s tax plan was the family rebate. Married couples with children will get three or four thousand dollars as a rebate.”
Grace: “For me, and many students on campus, one of the things that we’re really passionate about is global health policy. Over the past few months, groups from a variety of global health clubs and student organizations have been going to different rallies and candidate town halls to try to get a sense of what their stances are. Right now, we’ve generally found that the two Democratic candidates, Bernie and Hillary, have relatively strong support for continuing to fund or expand our global health funding. We’ve also spoken to Ted Cruz, who was pretty strongly against that. Essentially, his argument was that it is not the US’s responsibility. Chris Christie and Trump illustrated a little more support for the idea without any specifics.”
Carla: “As a college student, obviously student loans are very important to me, because we rack up a lot of debt with these loans, which really debilitates you once we leave school. It’s really hard to pay them off, interest rates are not good, and you’re still trying to start off your life without a foundation. It’s a really exploitative system. Another important thing is also race relations. Especially on college campuses things have become very tense with race relations and all over the country, as well. Depending on who becomes president, I really want there to be some kind of effort to deal with things that happened in Ferguson, Baltimore, and Black Lives Matter. On top of that, nobody really talks about the race issues that Latinos face. Discrimination against Latinos has spiked since [the rise of] Donald Trump. I think candidates have to make priority to change these things and talk about them. I’m still undecided as to who I’m going to vote for, but one of the reasons I was initially drawn to Bernie Sanders was because he talked about Black Lives Matter. When a Black Lives Matter protestor interrupted him, he didn’t love it, but he still let them talk, in a way of saying ‘thank you for sharing.’ I’ve also seen a video of Hillary similarly interrupted and it was much more combative. Making an effort to really give concrete proposals and talk about what you want to change is important for both of these issues and can make a big difference.”
Ben: “As someone who’s going to be looking for a job soon, the state of the economy is a big issue. But realistically the most important thing to me is that who ever is elected is able to do the job they’re walking into. For me, that means responsible foreign policy, understating the current state of Congress, and having realistic goals about what can be accomplished but then doing the things that a president is left to do when Congress is unable to otherwise govern.”
How impactful do you think college students’ political engagement will be in the outcome of the upcoming election?
Susan: “I think it would be more impactful if people went out and voted, so go vote! The reason that older voters are so powerful is because they go out and vote, and that matters. So, be angry enough about stuff to go out and actually do something about it and make your voice heard at the polls.”
Declan: “Young people will become the base of the party. I think that Bernie Sanders has done a phenomenal job reaching out to young voters. Rubio had done a good job until he dropped out, Jeb Bush had reached out to college students. The college vote is important moving forward.”
Grace: “I think college students are definitely incredibly politically powerful. One reason I think this is because we’re students, we don’t work for big corporations and we’re not involved in any given industry, so we don’t have any agenda or people funding us. So when we go to events and rallies and speak up, they know that this is coming just from us. It’s not a result of a hidden agenda.”
Carla: “I think it’s going to be pretty impactful. I think we’re seeing the youth come out a lot more in this election than they have in the past. Mostly because of candidates like Sanders, as well as the polarization that Trump is causing. This is going to be one of the elections where it really could make a difference.”
Ben: “I think it depends on the nominees. I think if we get Sanders, it will be very important, and we can see turnout that we’ve never seen before. With Clinton, I hope people will be equally engaged. The other way people get involved is if they dislike someone who’s running so much. Even if they don’t like Secretary Clinton, they decide stopping a Crux or Trump presidency is important, so that will have a big impact. I think if we have a brokered convention, and have a Clinton vs. Paul Ryan election, youth turnout will probably come out to involvement seen in the 2004 and 2008 cycles.”
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