The polls opened bright and early for Haverford College, in the Douglass Gardner Integrated Athletics Center (GIAC). From 7 a.m. onward, students filed into the building and lined up to cast their ballots in what, for many, is the first presidential election they’re able to vote in. Staff members of the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship drove golf carts around campus, offering free rides to the GIAC, and two food trucks waited outside to celebrate election day.
Signs advocating democratic candidates lined the walkway to the door – a single Trump sign lay in the midst, but had notably been knocked down. Inside, three tables offered voting information, lists of candidates endorsed by the Democratic Party, and Harris/Walz signs. Not one of them hung a sign endorsing Trump. It’s clear based on democratic presence that the majority of voters at Haverford are expected to vote for Kamala Harris.
At Bryn Mawr, students have been shuttled to and fro all day from their polling place, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, and back to campus. A therapy dog was brought to the drop-off point to help ease election anxiety, and snacks were plentiful, all in an effort to engage student voters and guide the community through a day of high stress.
The mood across the Bi-Co today has been both celebratory of civic engagement, and remarkably tense as we wait to hear the results of what many see as an existential election, and one which hangs in large part on Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes.
Haverford senior Tristan Charles told the Bi-Co News he’s “probably voting for Kamala,” and that he thinks her legwork in Pennsylvania communities has garnered a lot of support from college students. However, he’s most concerned about the period post-election, whichever way the votes fall. “There might be a lot of riots or protests post-election,” he said, “So just like, safety of people, safety of communities [is my biggest concern].”
Magnolia Valdez-Lane ’27 had similar worries about the political landscape in the event that Trump wins: “…like, what’s it gonna look like? Is there gonna be another insurrection? You know, he already has all of these people who are basically members of a cult following him. They see him as this perfect untouchable leader. So if again they feel like they need to claim that he didn’t win, I’m wondering what that’s gonna look like. … I’m concerned with the state of the country but I’m also a pretty pessimistic person, so I’m not hopeful for either candidates on how it’s gonna go in terms of our policies with Palestine and Israel right now.”
Many students and staff are feeling the weight of a lesser-of-two-evils situation this election. Valdez-Lane said of her vote for Kamala Harris, “I mean, she’s fine. Pro-choice is very important to me. I’m very glad that’s something that she’s running in her campaign, and with education and student loan forgiveness is also important to me. I am very pro-Palestine and its liberation, so I would not agree with her stance on that and her plans with that and the Biden administration with that, but I understand that Trump is going to do worse things probably for the country. I’m thinking about it in terms of LGBTQ rights and immigrant rights. I was always gonna vote for her and I was always gonna vote for the Democratic candidate, but I’m not pro-Kamala in the strongest way. I just think that she’s the better choice by far.”
KT Tedesco, Director of the Center for Gender Resources and Sexual Equity (GRASE), said the deciding factor in casting her vote this year was the high stakes. “I feel like it’s a shitty decision either way,” she said, “and thinking about the global context, I feel like I don’t want to participate in mass killing. So I think a lot of things are at stake, humanity being the number one.”
Both Valdez-Lane and Tedesco touched on what candidates have said regarding Israel and Palestine in the course of their campaigns. The campus atmosphere is particularly marked by the presence of undecided voters across the Bi-Co; after a year of war in Israel and Gaza and the continuation of support for Israel from the US government, many students have committed to abstaining from the election, citing the Democratic Party’s insufficient moves towards a ceasefire resolution.
Maya Schindler ’27 noted that there isn’t really a debate in the Bi-Co across partisan lines. Rather, the argument is whether students should vote at all. Some students assert that they “draw the line at genocide,” and will not participate in an election which cannot promise more assured policies to protect Palestinians.
Bryn Mawr sophomore Ash Chevrier said they were voting for Harris, though they admitted, “I would say there’s definitely things she can work on, like, in regards to Palestine/Israel, like, she’s very like, pro-Israel, which, [I’m] not a big fan of that, but we can work on it. We can work on it. Donald Trump, though he’s never going to fix anything at all, he’s just going to make things worse.”
Another prevalent issue on the ballot for Haverford voters is reproductive rights. Fiona Pando ’25, leader of the Haverford Democrats and Haverford for Harris, said, “what’s deciding my vote in this election is that a lot of the things on the ballot aren’t political. They’re personal. And I think that moving away from having reproductive rights should not be on the ballot. That is something that is a human right, in my opinion, and I think that we should allow people to make choices about their own bodies, honestly. And I think that that’s one thing that was definitely on the ballot that I definitely rallied behind.”
Scott Sussman, Haverford ’25, said that in voting for Harris, he’s thinking about his mother and sister, and how the policies a new president puts forth protecting or endangering a woman’s right to choose will affect them.
Margaret Schedler ’27 simply voiced hopes for a more “rational” future for the country: “I just, I just want people to be normal now, like we’ve had our political extremists vibe, period of time, in like 2020, to 2022, like, let’s – can we just be normal adults now and make rational decisions and respect presidential election process for what [they are]?” She continued, “I think Donald Trump’s campaign is kind of falling apart at this point, like it’s, it’s literally looks like a clown show … So I mean, I already hated him before, but I think now I’m just I like, I don’t even understand why he’s still running like he doesn’t really have a presidential image anymore. I just see him now as a convict in a garbage truck, like I think that I I appreciate the his campaigns, like maybe thinking like he represents the working class, because the working class is the background or the backbone of the United States, but they’re doing it in a way that almost like objectifies or makes fun of people in like service jobs.” Schedler did mention, however, “I was hoping that [Kamala Harris] would rise above attacking Donald Trump, because I’m so tired of the candidates just attacking each other instead of talking about real issues … I wish that she would just kind of ignore him and focus on what the country really needs to hear, which is, what, what is the President going to do? What’s the plan? And I think she has done a pretty good job with telling us, especially younger voters, what she’s going to do and how we can get involved.”
Protecting and providing for the right to education is another top issue for Bi-Co voters. Bryn Mawr junior Austin Morris, Overbrook Art-Program Coordinator at the Civic Engagement Center, said, “I’m studying to go into education, and so I really want to make sure that we’re setting up our future right for future students, and making sure we have good quality access to free public education … under Project 2025 they’re looking to repeal the Department of Education, and that’s just abhorrent.”
At 8 p.m., polls closed and the Bi-Co embarked on a long night of waiting and watching. Across both campuses, students gathered for screenings of election coverage. Haverford students came together in Stokes Auditorium for the Haverford Democrats’ watch party, others in Chase Hall for a less official screening MC-ed by Ben Fligelman ’26, Adam Trencher ’25 and still others in Lutnick Library study rooms, keeping one eye on the electoral map and the other on homework.
Commenting on the event, Fligelman said at 10:10 p.m., “I would say that in terms of an event, it’s going very well. In terms of the election, all signs point to Donald Trump winning. Like I said, though, the New York Times needle had Hillary ahead until 11pm in 2016, but there’s always the concern that the needle has been improved. Things are looking pretty grim for Harris.”
Nomah Elliot, Leilani Davis, Adriana Cruz, and Natalie Phan reported this article.
