A blue wave has just hit Southern Maine Community College, or so it would seem. Throughout the United States of America, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have engaged in a fierce competition to become the next President of the United States . With election season upon us, The Beacon set out to see who the students, faculty, and staff of SMCC were voting for. With SMCC offering free college to people who graduated high school in 2022–2025 from both Maine and other states, it attracts a wide range of students and political perspectives.
With such a diverse group of people, we expected the results to be mixed. However, SMCC’s overwhelming preference to vote for Kamala Harris in this upcoming election stunned The Beacon. The survey received 54 responses, the majority of which came from students and women. Only 5.7%, or 3 of the responses, indicated that they would be voting in favor of Trump and Vance, while 77.4% of the respondents supported Harris and Walz. Other results of the survey showed that 11.2% would be showing support to other candidates, while the remaining 5.7% would not be voting in this election.
Even though most responses showed people were voting for Harris, not all of her supporters were affiliated with the Democratic Party. While 41.5% of respondents were indeed members of the Democratic Party, 30.2% claimed to be affiliated with other parties. The results of the survey showed that a solid 7.5% of respondents were members of the Libertarian Party and 3.8% were members of the Green Party. The most surprising aspect of the political party affiliation section of the survey was the complete absence of Republican Party members among the respondents, with 17% remaining unaffiliated.
We also asked survey respondents why they were voting the way they were, or if they weren’t voting, why they had decided not to vote. The majority of the responses expressed similar sentiments, including their support for candidates who advocate for LGBTQ+ and women’s rights, their desire for an “intellectual” person in office, their belief that Trump is a felon and not someone they want in office, and other similar sentiments. Here are some standouts:
“Because the two-party system is awful, and I have no other real choice. Republicans actively want me dead, so it’s the former piggy by default.”
“For logical reasons, Donald Trump is the next Nixon, Truman. He‘s dangerous, terrifying, socially irresponsible, a felon, racist, rapist, sexist, narcissistic, liar. Why he is even in the running to be the president of the United States of America is beyond me. Pretty soon women‘s right to speak will be taken away too. This is not the America I knew or was proud of, and at this point… the fact that people are „fans“ and want to be liked for their own insecurities voting for a pig is disgusting and I’d rather die on anyone else’s soil but this one, today.”
“I am voting for Chase Oliver because his major concern is the economy. As a broke college student looking at my future with dim financial prospects, the economy is my biggest concern right now. I worry about taxes and inflation and prices more than anything, and I want the person in office to be equally concerned about those things.”
All the respondents that said they were choosing not to vote shared a common sentiment: they didn’t have strong feelings for any of the candidates, nor did they believe their vote held any weight.
The Beacon also asked respondents what their biggest political fear was. The answers were interesting. One recurring theme was that they did not want to lose the rights to their body or their right to be themselves. Some respondents expressed their fear of Trump’s election or even their fear of his “extreme” supporters.
In the end, whether Trump or Harris wins the election, if this small sample size is actually representative, then it’s safe to say that SMCC is showing its overwhelming support for Kamala Harris.
Categories: Campus News, Featured, Politics, SMCC, world affairs
The SMCC Beacon 