This story is syndicated from The Beach Comber, the newspaper of Beachwood High School in Beachwood, OH. The original version of the story ran here.
After Biden’s horrific debate performance in June, I immediately began to imagine a Harris presidency. During our weekly talk about politics, my dad and I toyed around with the idea, concluding that despite seemingly insurmountable odds, she could do it.
I felt a wave of hope after Biden dropped out of the race, realizing that I would get the chance to witness not only a female president but a president who looked like me. Every day, I would check the news for updates and share the most exciting ones with my family. One hit especially close to home.
In July, over 44,000 Black women came together on a Zoom call to raise money for Harris. They had pooled over $1.5 million dollars. My mom had been on the call, and the feeling was optimistic but cautious, she said.
Soon, it was Nov. 6. After a 16-hour day working the polls, I opened my laptop to see that Harris was losing in almost every swing state, and she hadn’t even earned a big margin in blue states like New Jersey and Virginia. Disappointed but still holding on to a glimmer of hope, I decided to go to bed and see how things stood in the morning.
I woke up at 5:30 (I guess even my circadian rhythm detected something was off) to discover that Trump had won the election.
I sat in a state of shock for a few minutes. Eventually, I made my way to school, feeling numb and struggling to process the situation. When lunchtime came, it felt like something in my body had broken. My tears were coming out faster than I could control. I rushed home during my free period and cried on my couch.
Trump’s first term was largely composed of unfulfilled promises, including the “Muslim ban” as he called it, which was blocked by federal judges, and his infamous border wall, which caused a several-week government shutdown after a failed attempt to obtain funding for the project. After a neo-Nazi rally left a counterprotestor dead, Trump famously said there were “very fine people” on both sides. He embarrassed the U.S. on the international stage when he extorted another country’s leader.
How, in 2024, did a man with 34 felony convictions, 27 sexual assault allegations, two impeachments, and one incitement of insurrection win the votes of over 74 million people?
This answer, however, was not hard to find. In 2020, 42% of men ages 18-29 voted for Trump. In 2024, that share jumped to 56% — one of the most surprising headlines of post-election coverage. Analysts attributed the shift in part to the Trump campaign’s strong appeal to masculinity, in contrast with the Harris campaign’s focus on the rights of women, among others. Trump heavily embraced the concept throughout his campaign, from participating in a live stream with 23-year-old right-wing streamer Adin Ross to featuring former wrestler Hulk Hogan at his controversial Madison Square Garden rally.
A 2024 Glamour feature revealed that many white men voted for Trump this past election in part because they felt their identities were being targeted. According to those men, Harris’s campaign made them feel guilty for being straight white men, while Trump’s campaign made them feel more accepted.
“Red Pill” culture remains part of what makes Trump so appealing to these voters. The term “red pill” derives from the 1999 science-fiction film The Matrix, in which characters have to take a red pill to awaken into reality. Anti-feminists adopted the expression, ignoring the movie’s themes of minority empowerment. Helen Lewis of The Atlantic referred to Trump’s attempt to appeal to young men as a “red-pill podcast tour.” Red-pill content often proudly pushes misogynistic, homophobic, and white supremacist ideas onto susceptible audiences, including some men who gravitated toward Trump.
Additionally, according to Glamour, many young white men who are part of this culture report that they cannot share their political opinions, specifically in academic spaces, without feeling ostracized or risking a bad grade.
Latinos saw a similar shift toward Trump, with 32% voting for him in 2020 and 45% in 2024. In an interview with NPR’s Juana Summers, political consultant Mike Madrid surmised that Latinos are becoming more of an “economic populist voter,” rather than becoming more conservative — an important distinction that the community is now grappling with under Trump’s harsh executive orders and directives for ICE.
Although president-elect Trump often used derogatory language when describing immigrants and spoke frequently about mass deportations on the campaign trail, many Latino voters remained focused on his economic promises, like removing taxes on tips, closing the border and imposing tariffs on other nations.
Almost 40% of Latinos are under the age of 30, and almost 20% of the Latino electorate voted for the first time this election. Many of these voters are third- and fourth-generation immigrants; they are American-born and may see themselves as being more distanced from the immigrant experience.
Demographics, however, are only part of the picture. This campaign season, celebrity endorsements continued to play an important role, though it’s hard to tell exactly what role that was. Taylor Swift inspired her followers to register to vote in huge numbers — for whom they voted is less concrete.
It would be naïve not to acknowledge the role that her gender and race played in this election on both sides.
For many on the left, specifically Black women, a Harris presidency represented hope. It showed us that despite the derogatory comments, from Harris being called a “DEI Shaniqua” to accusations that she performed sexual favors to get to the White House, we could hold the highest office in the land. It showed us that, despite our voting rights only becoming law after centuries of the first settlers arriving on our shores, we can and will find our names on that ballot.
Trump, however, made a point to challenge our identities and worth. He has, time and time again, unleashed slews of deeply sexist, graphic, and often violent insults.
He even questioned Harris’ Indian and Black background.
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black — so I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Despite the allegation, Harris has long acknowledged her background in full.
And then there was Biden. When asked on The View if she would have done anything differently than Joe Biden had done in his presidency, Harris responded, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”
Among President Biden’s other accomplishments, unemployment remained under 4% for over 28 months, 16 million new jobs have been created, and major cities are seeing their lowest violent crime rates in over 50 years.
But Harris should have had a more detailed answer — especially given his unpopularity. According to a CBS poll, 70% of Americans said that, as of November, they were struggling financially; many attributed this issue to Biden’s administration.
Harris was plunged into the race less than 100 days before the election. It was naturally difficult for Harris to distance herself from President Biden.
It’d be easy to assume Harris ran far too liberal a campaign for the average American voter, that she played into identity politics in a way that didn’t resonate with many. Though at many times taken out of context, voters linked phrases like “defund the police” with Harris’ campaign, and she spent a significant amount of time at her rallies speaking about abortion rights. She was often on the defensive, countering mistruths from the right. She was also endorsed by leaders whom the right view as fringe progressives, like Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Senator Bernie Sanders.
Still, at times during her campaign, she was doing the exact opposite of being “too liberal.” She flaunted her gun ownership, considered crossing the aisle and putting a Republican in her cabinet, spent time campaigning with former Republican Representative Liz Cheney and touted her endorsement from former Vice President Dick Cheney, among many others from the right. Harris, along with plenty of other Democratic candidates vying for House and Senate seats, attempted to appeal to moderate Republicans and ultimately failed.
Maybe Harris didn’t seem genuine enough, as the attempt to appeal to both Republicans and Democrats made it difficult for voters to gauge what she did and didn’t support. Or, maybe Trump swaying to Ave Maria and making vulgar claims about Arnold Palmer was more compelling.
Regardless of my disappointment with the election’s outcome , as an 18-year-old girl with hopes of working in politics one day, it would be a lie to say this election wasn’t exciting for me. Some days, I went to bed feeling more hopeful than ever. On others, I laughed. I learned more about politics, history, psychology and sociology in one campaign season than I ever had before.
I went down U.S. Presidential history rabbit holes, had deep conversations with my family about the Reagan years and learned about the voting history of different counties. I learned about myself — and I saw myself in my candidate.