Students React to Election Results

By Annie McGrew Staff Writer

After the outcome of the midterm elections were announced Tuesday night, Emory students voiced their reactions around campus and through social media sites such as Facebook, Yik Yak and Twitter.

The elections allowed for a Republican majority in the Senate and also maintained Georgia as a red state with wins for Republicans, including U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue and incumbent Governor Nathan Deal.

Chairwoman of Emory College Republicans and College senior Nicole Goetz wrote in an email to the Wheel that she was very pleased with the outcome of the midterms and hopes that these midterm elections will help change Emory students' view of the Republican party.

"I find it ironic for a school that encourages acceptance of all ideas, cultures and backgrounds that it is almost impossible for Republicans to fully embrace who we are without facing condemnation and false accusations from our peers," Goetz wrote in an email to the Wheel. "I really wanted these elections to reopen healthy political dialogue on this campus, but I am not sure if we are at that point just yet."

The Office of the President and the Division of Campus Life provided shuttles from main campus to Druid Hills High School, the North Druid Hills polling station, every 20-30 minutes on Tuesday. According to Senior Vice President and Dean of Campus Life Ajay Nair, this was the first year that transportation was provided to facilitate student voting.

"Students advocated that we provide transportation to the polls," Nair wrote in an email to the Wheel, citing the Young Democrats and other individuals.

For future elections, Nair plans to work with student government to increase voting participation.

College junior and President of College Democrats Alexius Marcano was pleased with the effort Emory's political groups and the administration made to turn out the vote for the midterm elections. However, he noted that lack of student turnout at Emory still paralleled what was happening around the rest of the country.

"There was a noticeable lack of college students present at our local polling sites, and overall, Georgia ranked extremely low in youth turnout with only 10 percent of people ages 18-29 turning out to vote for this election," Marcano wrote in an email to the Wheel. "I believe that a strong democracy needs broad participation and that we need to do a much better job at actually making the effort to turn out to vote."

According to NBC News, young voters were 13 percent of the electorate in this election. In the 2010 midterms, young voters made up 12 percent of the electorate, and in the 2012 presidential race, young voters were 20 percent of the voting public, according to NBC News. In a Nov. 6 news release, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) named youth voters as the strongest age group for Democrats, citing that in Georgia, young voters chose Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Michelle Nunn over Perdue by 18 percent. In other states, Republicans won the youth vote. Exit poll data in the state showed that 58 percent of young voters chose Nunn and 40 percent Perdue at the ballot box, according to the release.

Although voter turnout may have been low for youth in Georgia, many Emory students reported following the midterm elections and had opinions about the outcomes of the elections both in Georgia and in their respective home states.

"It was shocking," College senior Sachin Shetty said of the election outcomes in his home state of Connecticut. "We are usually a blue state, but the Republican candidate Tom Foley was projected to win [in the gubernatorial race]."

Shetty was hoping that Foley would follow through with his projected win, but Democratic candidate Dan Malloy came out with the win.

Of the election results in Georgia, College junior Sean Healy found the outcome very predictable.

"Georgia is particularly known as a southern Republican state, especially in rural Georgia where I'm from," Healey said. "I think both Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter were very well spoken and qualified individuals. Both parties ran a good race - probably the closest race that I've voted in in the past two years."

College sophomore Ally Chung was surprised by the results, saying that while she knew there were many close elections, she didn't expect Democrats to win so few of them.

"I guess it just means that since both the House and Senate are red, Obama's gonna need to use his veto power more," Chung said.

During the midterm elections, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing senior Hannah Hooten reflected on the overall state of the political stage in the United States.

"I just wish there would be more balance," Hooten said. "I think that our political parties are often too polarized...in a true democracy all sides need to be equal."

According to Director of CIRCLE and Associate Dean of Tisch College of Tufts University Peter Levine, youth voters in Georgia were largely responsible for keeping the Georgia midterm election race as close as it was.

"Given this strong age divide in Tuesday's election, Georgia should be seen by national Democrats as a potentially competitive state in the 2016 presidential election," Levine said in the CIRCLE news release.

– By Annie McGrew, Staff Writer

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