The divisive 2024 election cycle is finally coming to a close. On Tuesday, November 5th, the country will start counting millions of ballots nationwide and decide who will be the 47th president of the United States. Amid division about abortion, immigration, the economy, and many more issues, a unifying theme seems to appear in our media: neither party is ecstatic about the candidate they are running.
According to the most recent polling data, Kamala Harris is viewed unfavorably by 47.9% of Americans, with 46.3% viewing her favorably. Donald Trump is viewed unfavorably by 52.8% of Americans, with 43.5% viewing him favorably.
Many Americans have resorted to the philosophy of “lesser-evil voting,” the idea of voting not in support of a candidate but as a form of protest against the other. Renowned linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky published an article with music professor and political commentator John Halle discussing this strategy ahead of the 2016 election, describing it as a choice where voters in less competitive “safe states” feel free to back a third-party candidate or even abstain from voting, while those in tightly contested “swing” states focus on supporting the more favorable of the two major candidates to avoid a worse outcome.
Lesser-evil voting has been especially prevalent in the last three election cycles with Trump on the Republican ticket. Many individuals, primarily Democrats, viewed their candidate as a lesser evil than Trump, a phenomenon we saw in full force in the 2020 primary when 58% of Democrats said they would rather have a candidate who could beat Trump over a candidate who agreed with them on the issues. However, the effect of lesser-evil voting is also seen on the right in this election: Republicans who despise Biden-Harris policies regarding immigration and the economy are reluctantly voting for Trump.
The importance of the youth vote in this election is prominent, as 41 million new members of Generation Z will be eligible to vote for the first time. To identify the impact of lesser-evil voting, the Vanderbilt Political Review surveyed 350 undergraduate respondents to see how enthusiastic Vanderbilt students are regarding their candidates for the 2024 election cycle. After looking at the data, we have come to three main takeaways.
Takeaway #1: Vanderbilt overwhelmingly leans to supporting Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party.
While this first takeaway isn’t a direct consequence of lesser evil voting, it will be important in framing our conversation. Of the 350 students surveyed, 208 are voting for Kamala Harris, 62 for Donald Trump, 66 either cannot vote or will abstain, 10 for third-party candidates, and four are undecided. This data is significantly different than the national average of both Harris and Trump in nationwide polls is neck-neck, with Harris polling at 48.0% and Trump at 46.8%.
Some explanations behind this discrepancy between Vanderbilt data and national averages could be that college campuses tend to be more liberal, as shown by a study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2019. Another plausible explanation is that there is a significant non-response bias from Republicans and Trump supporters due to fear of backlash, a phenomenon we saw in both the 2016 election and 2020 election. While the survey conducted allowed respondents to remain anonymous, fear of backlash from lack of anonymity may have discouraged many Trump supporters from showcasing their support.
Takeaway #2: Supporters of both candidates show slightly favorable enthusiasm for their candidate’s policies, morals, and values. Political polarization of the candidates yielded higher enthusiasm for their respective policy positions.
On average, Vanderbilt students who support Kamala Harris generally give her a moderate rating, averaging just under 6 out of 10, while students who support Donald Trump rate his platform slightly higher, at about 6.3 out of 10. While this may indicate that Vanderbilt students align with the morals, values, and policies of Trump more than Harris, given the ratings of Harris and Trump were so close—5.92 and 6.31, respectively—Trump’s slight edge here can be attributed to random variation.
Overall, this favorability is significantly higher than the national average, which could indicate that lesser-evil voting has a minimal effect on the Vanderbilt campus body. Still, many of our respondents critiqued both candidates regarding policy and behavior.
For Harris, many frustrations stemmed from her “moderate” policies regarding immigration and her shunning of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. An issue that routinely proved itself to be challenging for Harris is the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, as Vanderbilt students called for Harris to be more pro-Palestine and call for a ceasefire. Students who mentioned Palestine in their comments in the survey gave her an average rating of 5.05/10, a sizable drop from the Harris average and the average for both candidates.
“I and many other Kamala voters are Palestine supporters and do not feel represented by the Harris administration’s plans to continue funding the IDF and propping up a genocide. I am voting for critical issues such as abortion rights (and, in general, to prevent stacking of the Supreme Court with right-wing justices), environmental/climate justice, and other domestic policies. However, I do not feel represented by the Harris administration’s position on the ongoing genocide against Palestinians. I do not believe that the Trump administration would do anything differently to prevent the IDF from destroying entire bloodlines (especially based on previous remarks made by the administration), which is why I am choosing to vote for Kamala based on all of these other domestic issues that I also care about.” – Anonymous Vanderbilt Student
” [I wish that Vice President Harris would] [s]top going to the center and embrace the progressive wing of the Democratic voting block instead of abandoning them and taking their vote for granted.”- Anonymous Vanderbilt Student
For Trump, the majority of criticisms fell squarely into two camps: Vanderbilt students want the former president to be more strict with conservative policy—stronger stances on abortion, LGBTQ rights, and immigration—and those who want to see a change in his decorum—being more moderate, unifying, professional, etc. Temperament seems to be the primary concern among Trump voters as 26 of 62 respondents commented that Trump must be less rash, more unifying, and have greater integrity.
“I believe Trump could more effectively represent my beliefs by fully committing to his rhetoric and delivering decisive action. In his first term, he didn’t fully implement some key policies, so I hope he will prioritize them this time around when he takes power. Chief among these are enacting large-scale deportation (10 million+), completing the wall, restoring law and order in major cities by deploying the National Guard and granting police full immunity, appointing a courageous attorney general to dismantle the corrupt political establishment, implementing non-internationalist economic policies to rebuild America’s manufacturing base, replacing Jerome Powell with a more competent Fed Chair, ending all foreign aid to return American foreign policy to its non-interventionist roots, and cutting wasteful government spending on ineffective welfare programs, among other things.” – Anonymous Vanderbilt Student
“By being more kind; less provocative statements.” – Anonymous Vanderbilt Student
From a policy perspective, one thing that stood out was that Vanderbilt students supported more political polarization. While many of Harris’s supporters want their candidate to institute more liberal policies, many of Trump’s supporters call for him to institute a more conservative agenda.
Takeaway #3: Although many students gave hesitant responses regarding the candidate’s policies, excitement for voting remained relatively high among both major party candidates.
Vanderbilt students rated their overall enthusiasm for the upcoming election at a moderate level, averaging around 6.5 out of 10. Notably, Harris supporters expressed slightly higher enthusiasm for voting, averaging about 6.8, compared to Trump supporters’ 6.6 rating. This is a shift from earlier findings, where Trump supporters showed slightly more support for their candidate than Harris supporters did for hers. This relatively high enthusiasm shows that even amongst candidates with divisive policies indicating that this being the first election many Vanderbilt students are participating in might be boosting enthusiasm. Once again, we can attribute the gap in support between Trump and Harris in this metric to random variation of the samples.
While Vanderbilt is a small sample size for the entire country, the results of this survey do lead to some fascinating revelations about our politics, media, and the portrayal of both candidates. While neither candidate seems extremely popular, there is still strong support in our student body for one’s preferred candidate compared to the national average, and there is even higher enthusiasm for the opportunity to vote in such a close election. Students are eager to make their voices heard in this election, and enthusiasm on campus is high. Many feel that both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump could gain more support from the student population by fully embracing their party’s core values, rather than adopting moderate stances. It seems that lesser-evil voting, while still prevalent in our student body, isn’t affecting the outcome as much as some outlets portray. Ultimately, Vanderbilt students are proving that, despite the polarizing nature of this election, they are eager to cast their ballots and shape the future on their own terms.
