Editor’s Note: This piece was written in December of 2024, prior to President Trump’s inauguration.
The 2024 Presidential Election was a stressful time for many. For the Haverford Democrats, a student-run club, it meant an era of organizing, tabling, and canvassing. Now, Donald J. Trump has been elected the 47th President: so what does the club look like post-election? This is a time of reflection and a chance to examine the club’s efforts leading up to the election, the challenges they faced, and a change in the club’s identity. Club members Isabella Otterbein (Haverford ‘26) and Rhianna Searle (Haverford ‘27) spoke to the Bi-Co News on the club’s plans and values post-election.
The Haverford Democrats are in conversation regarding a re-focusing in the wake of the election and developing a more progressive group identity. This has been made complicated by the nature of their connections to other Democratic groups, both local and national.
Ahead of the fall semester, Haverford Democrats met virtually to discuss their plans for election season. These involved learning about the student population, educating their audience on the electoral process, and connecting the college with external organizations. They also included a discussion on how they would connect with Haverford’s student body given that much of the campus was invested in Palestinian activism, while Kamala Harris has been vocal in her support for Israel’s right to defend itself. Ultimately, however, getting Harris elected was the Haverford Democrats’ highest priority. At the beginning of the semester, they ran a campaign on social media, posted continuous flyers, and could frequently be seen tabling for voter registration inside the Dining Center.
Isabella Otterbein, in charge of “getting out the vote,” explained that during election season, Haverford Democrats were in collaboration with the Haverford Township Democrats and Delaware County Democrats, who were themselves coordinating with the Democratic National Convention. Going into the election, they also worked with organizations such as Project 26 Pennsylvania, which aims to protect student voters.
Sophomore Social Media Coordinator Rhianna Searle explained the idea behind educating college students: not to encourage them to be Democrats, but to make sure they know how to get their vote counted, that they registered correctly, and that they are familiar with the identities and roles of the candidates on the ballot. Through in-person tabling with local organizations like the Haverford Township Democrats and creating thorough guidelines for voting via Instagram posts, Searle got the message out to Haverford Students and followers of their account.
When asked about voters’ hesitation to vote blue, both Otterbein and Searle stated that for most Haverford students, the choice was between voting blue, voting third-party, or abstaining from voting. Otterbein shared that her research about Haverford’s campus revealed only 24 registered Republicans, compared to 723 registered Democrats, 147 registered independents, and 10 registered libertarians. Because of this demographic breakdown, getting people to vote blue at Haverford is a unique experience, mobilizing an already blue campus community.
One might wonder why this poses such a challenge; wasn’t everyone already going to vote for Harris? The simple answer is that no, students at Haverford did not plan on walking into the voting booth and marking blue without question. Many Fords had qualms about Harris’ platform, a major one being Harris’s somewhat murky stance on the United States’ involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict, which was made evident in her speech at the Democratic National Convention. When reconciling their current progressive shifts with their previous focuses going into the election, Searle and Otterbein cited Senator Bernie Sanders’ response to the election loss. Their goal was to avoid a Trump presidency rather than to champion Kamala Harris and all the Democratic party stands for. The group primarily wanted to minimize the threats posed to queer rights, abortion rights, and civil rights.
Searle further explained how students can get involved with pro-Palestinian activism by voting in the election for Pennsylvania State Treasurer, even while abstaining from voting in the presidential election. She says, ‘I think the strategy of, ‘let’s neglect these other issues people care about’ clearly did not work. So I think sort of a pivot to … focusing on these things like Palestine that people, especially college students, are saying is so important to them – maybe that is the answer to getting the Democrats in power. Maybe ignoring these things that we think of as fringe issues is just not actually the best way to do it.”
So what does this pivot look like at Haverford? Otterbein explains that the Haverford Democrats are discussing, “Making a shift a little bit away from the Democratic Party as an institution and becoming more progressive,” to better align with Haverford students’ values. But this strategic move is not without complications. Searle emphasized the club’s identity as the “political system club” on campus, explaining that activism has its roots in clubs including but not limited to Student Justice for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Bi-College Mutual Aid. It is important, however, for students to understand the electoral college system, and that the club pushes a progressive agenda within that system. The Haverford Democrats are also closely tied to other Democratically aligned groups, and worry about distancing themselves from these groups, which critically supported their election efforts by funding several Haverford Democrats events.
The group’s identity as it stands differs from Haverford’s farther left-leaning student body, which has inevitably prevented some people from engaging with them. These are the people who opted to vote third-party or not at all. A more critical view of the Democratic party may allow the Haverford Democrats to bridge the gap between what students believe and how they can exercise their beliefs through the current political system. Otterbein expressed that, “the government isn’t working for the people it’s supposed to represent. And so we’re in a place in which people are going– ‘is this a time in which we need to reconsider how our government represents us?’”
Still, is it even possible for a Democratically bound group to reach farther left-leaning students? When asked if there is anything salvageable about the Democratic Party, Julia Chanda (Haverford ’26) stated that she does not have any hope for the party itself. She argued that Democratic campaigns detract from the political energy of leftism and explained why she chose not to vote.
Discussing other ways people can advocate for the change they want to see, Chanda explained, “If you’d like to broker change through the more normative ways of how the electoral system is structured … find a candidate … have the candidate endorse your views, represent you to a greater degree than the other options and have them run for office first in your state elections, [moving] up the national ladder until [they’re] a major candidate.” There are also “organizations that work … more [locally] than nationally … unions, for instance [are] distinctly non-electoral organization that [attempt] to broker real material change for [their] constituents.” Towards the concluding moments of the interview, the conversation returned to the Democratic push on campus. While acknowledging the harshness of her words, Chanda said, “it disgusts me” that she doesn’t see students outwardly “[voting] for survival … Rather, voting [or] the advocacy for voting takes the form of unbridled joy and activity in civic duty” and “the underlying belief that everything will improve as the years go on.” Chanda added that, “there is a reason why you didn’t see your local Democratic Party organizing with their local JVP (Jewish Voices for Palestine) or SJP (Student Justice for Palestine) chapters.”
The Haverford Democrats’ goal now is to adjust where they may have gone wrong and foster student engagement that pushes them forward. Searle said as a final note, “If you feel like you don’t know what to do post-election, now is a great time to be thinking about what electoral politics can mean, especially for young people, … what do I do now, what does the system even mean, what does it look like? Those are the conversations we are having, or we want to be having. … we want ideas, we want involvement, we want voices.”
Where Searle encourages getting involved with electoral politics, Chanda compares Democratic organizing to building a Walmart in a small town, “it sucks up everything that is there… any ideas of political change and action are funneled into the party.” People do not have unlimited energy or time and, despite her objection to the Democratic party and their campaigning, Chanda says there is no inherent conflict between organizing and voting. Before the election, the Haverford Democrats prioritized getting out the vote. Whether their focus will shift towards more grassroots organizing in the spring semester following Trump’s inauguration remains to be seen.
