The 2024 Presidential Election is making a start, and many college students will be voting for the first time in a presidential election. This election has appeared to be a neck-and-neck race between Donald Trump for the republican party and Kamala Harris for the Democratic Party. This led to the question of if the election would still be a close race among Averett students, and what they find to be important standpoints when casting their vote. The Bonner Leadership Program led a mock election on Averett University’s campus that took place throughout the last week of October, giving students an opportunity to show support for their preferred candidate.
In the 2024 mock election at Averett University, Trump won the majority vote with 53 percent, Harris received 40 percent of the votes, 4 percent of votes were write-ins, 2 percent cast their vote for Jill Stein, and the remaining 1 percent did not choose a candidate.
The poll showed responses from 92 students across 13 different majors with the major 3 majors being business, aviation, and nursing. More than half the students that participated in the mock election were from Virginia, 23 percent were from North Carolina and the remaining 20 percent were from a different state or country.
In this mock election 61 percent of the participants were women, 50 percent of the women voted for Trump and the other 50 percent for Harris. This is an interesting result, given the fact that women’s rights, especially abortion rights, appear to be a controversial topic during this election. Harris has argued that Trump would further restrict abortion rights if he were to be reelected. Trump’s standpoint on abortion has changed a couple of times throughout the year, but he currently supports the ban on abortion.
“The possibility of any healthcare being restricted scares me,” an anonymous student said. “It’s dangerous to take away this choice from women who may need an abortion.”
Economics seem to be one of the top concerns for those supporting the republican party. This also reflects in the mock-election where all 13 students with majors in accounting, finance and business voted for Trump.
A small 28 percent of student voters that were white, said they will vote for Harris and 71 percent Trump. In comparison, 61 percent of non-white voters cast their vote for Harris. When looking at a voting difference between underclassmen and upperclassmen, there were 51 upperclassmen that voted and 41 underclassmen. 35 percent of the underclassmen would vote for Harris, 56 percent for Trump, and the rest were undecided. Amongst the upperclassman there was a tie, 50 percent will vote for Trump and 50 percent for Harris.
