The 2024 Election: The Institute Reacts
Student voices echo the sentiments of the nation, administration largely silent
Omar Orozco–The Tech
PHOTO COURTESY OF GRACE ZHANG
PHOTO COURTESY OF GRACE ZHANG
The Associated Press declared former President Donald J. Trump of the Republican Party the winner of the 2024 U.S. Presidential election over current Vice President Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party.
A campus in anticipation
The election was under intense anticipation from members within the Institute community.
The Institute Community & Equity Office’s (ICEO) November edition of ICEO News on Nov. 4 opened with a letter from Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Karl W. Reid '84, SM '85. Titled “Our shared election stress,” Reid detailed his heightened anxiety leading up to the election, acknowledging that the results would “have implications for us at MIT, in our communities, and in our personal lives.” Stress and incivility, however, would negatively impact job satisfaction and performance. To counter this, Reid outlined suggestions and resources to help community members uphold MIT’s core values of Openness and Respect, practice civil dialogue, and prioritize personal wellbeing by recognizing and processing election stress. Reid ended by referencing David Kaiser, Professor of Physics and Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science, in his book Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision, stating “MIT continues to thrive, not by avoiding complex challenges, [but] by embracing them—a lesson I am also learning.”
MIT’s Office of the President was silent leading up to the election. MIT President Sally Kornbluth did not send any communications via email or video to the MIT community.
As the ballots were cast
On Election Day, Nov. 5, The Tech shared an 2024 election poll with the MIT community. 172 individuals responded to the poll, and results were collected prior to the winner of the election being announced.
The results were as follows: 147 students voted for Democrat Kamala Harris (85.5%), while 9 students voted for the Republican Donald Trump (5.2%). The remaining 16 students voted for a third party candidate, such as Jill Stein and Claudia De la Cruz.
The students who voted for Harris had some common ground for their support. According to comments provided in the survey, one common reason that students voted for Harris was their strong opposition to Trump based on his past presidency, and his controversies, which notably included a felony conviction of falsifying business records in May. The main concerns that students raised about a second Trump presidency included the possibility of Project 2025’s policies becoming reality and Trump’s stances on pivotal issues like immigration and climate change.
With regards to party affiliation, 103 students identified as Democrat (59.9%), 55 students identified as Independent (32%), while 8 students identified as Republican (4.7%). The vast majority of the students cast ballots remotely: 81% voted using a mail-in ballot, while 19% voted in person.
From the poll, The Tech has compiled a series of quotes reflecting a gamut of student perspectives on campus. These quotes were lightly edited for clarity.
Affiliated as a Democrat, voted for Harris: “Real change comes from ground up organizing, so I voted for the candidate whose administration would be most likely to give into popular pressure on important issues. Also, Trump is a rapist and fascist, and Stein is an incompetent right-wing grifter.”
Affiliated as a Democrat, voted for Harris: “I voted for Harris for the following reasons, among others: support for reproductive rights, support for the Affordable Care Act, support for LGBT rights, I am horrified by Trump's campaign promise to deport millions, better tax plan than Trump's tariff plan, Trump mishandled relief of hurricane Maria and then allowed Puerto Rico to be publicly ridiculed during one of his rallies”
Affiliated as a Republican, voted for Harris: “Trump has a radicalizing destabilizing effect on our federal legislative government.”
Identified as liberal, voted for Harris: “I am worried about funding and research opportunities for MIT people [if] Trump wins… He wants to roll back Title IX protections for both students and staff at higher education institutions, and he wants to abolish critical race theory and gender ideology in K-12 schools across the country… As a neurodivergent, AFAB [assigned female at birth] nonbinary, queer, and disabled person, I cannot excuse any of his behavior. He actively wants to take away my rights… He even calls for the death of reporters and other people using their free speech to criticize him and his party…He'll attack and wage war on anyone who doesn't let him do what he wants without consequences.”
Voted for Harris: “I do not want to dramatize either candidate, and tried to temper my own expectations and enthusiasm before the election; it remains ridiculous that they are sensationalized like sports games. But it will continue to depress and impress me that a country built upon the backs of immigrants and women has now voted directly against them twice. I do not regret coming to MIT, but this is not the country that I thought I was choosing.”
Affiliated as a Republican, voted for Trump: “I voted for Donald Trump because [of]... his track record of policy successes, like keeping Russian and Chinese imperial ambitions mostly in check, promising movements towards peace in the Middle East, renegotiating NAFTA, and low inflation, unemployment, consumer prices, and illegal immigration rates in his previous administration… Kamala Harris [has] not proven herself to be an effective leader, in my opinion, in the tasks she was given while Vice President, [and] Donald Trump representing a broader shift in the Overton window, a rejection of the neoliberal/neoconservative hegemony which had dominated American politics from Reagan to 2015.”
Affiliation as a Democrat, voted for Jill Stein: “My state votes overwhelmingly in one direction, and ultimately, my one vote won’t affect the result. I don’t think either main candidate is entitled to my vote and I think voting third party for a candidate like Stein or de la Cruz whose views align more closely with mine will mean more than a vote for Harris.”
Affiliation as an Independent, voted for Nikki Haley as a write-in: “Protest vote to signal the existence of Never-Trump Republicans.”
The Tech has also received commentary from individuals who have given explicit permission for their perspectives to be used in this piece.
Baba Shonaiya ’26, an Independent, voted for Trump: “[The] country was better under Trump than under Biden. Harris never won a single primary while Trump ran a grassroots campaign. The Biden administration has a very disappointing foreign policy. Harris hasn't committed to a strong policy platform that she is willing to defend in interviews or at speeches. [Democrats] have created a national environment focused on demonizing the opposition, which may or may not have correlated with the multiple assassination attempts against the former president.”
Kyra Shutt ’25, an Independent, voted for Harris: “Mostly a ‘lesser of two evils’ kind of thing, but Kamala is actually a likable person and I think she’s more than qualified. And I really appreciate Walz’s political history and personality too. I don’t fully endorse Kamala, but I’ll do my part to keep Trump from getting back into office.”
Spencer Sindhusen ’27, a Republican, supported Trump but was not eligible to vote: “I want to pre-empt all doom-and-gloom predictions on both sides. This will not be the last election in America… Trump's been president before, and he hasn't obliterated America's democracy as he's often been accused of…As for Kamala, I personally believe, as a conservative, that her policies on immigration, the economy, foreign policy, and government censorship will be a net negative overall, but I also believe that her victory will not completely upend the American experiment. Our democracy can only continue if we see those we disagree with as our fellow countrymen and not some enemies.”
The outcome
Over the course of the night, former President Trump built up leads in pivotal swing states that Harris could simply not claw back. Florida was a harbinger: he won the state by over 13%, an astonishing jump from the margin of victory in 2020 of 3.3%. Then North Carolina. Then Georgia. Then Pennsylvania. Then Wisconsin. Then it was over. Trump won the electoral college.
The aftermath
In an email to the undergraduate community on Nov. 6, Undergraduate Association President Enoch Ellis shared an invitation to a Town Hall meeting to provide students an environment to share their thoughts and concerns about the election results. At the time of writing, the location has not yet been shared, but Ellis directs undergraduates to the @mitundergrad Instagram, where the location will be revealed.
Dr. Diep Luu, director of the Undergraduate Advising Center (UAC), also sent an email outlining resources for support, including the UAC’s daily drop-in hours, Student Support Services (S3) drop-in hours, the Office of Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life’s (ORSEL) Music in the Chapel program, Support, Wellbeing, and Belonging spaces such as the Wellbeing Lab and the Rainbow Lounge, the International Students Office walk-in hours, and a Community Dialogue event, “Aftermath of the Election: How do we bring our community together and recommit to the MIT Values?” on November 19.
The Tech again solicited commentary from students as the election results were finalized.
Samantha Belleman ’27 said, “I am very upset today. I am scared for my rights as a woman and a queer person. I feel very defeated and unsure of the future.”
Chase Vanias ’27 said, “When history textbooks look back on this era in time, the steadfast horrors of today will become increasingly and wildly evident. Until then, we just have to act like voting [for] a 34-time convicted felon, convicted sexual abuser, insurrectionist leader, and four-times bankrupted business owner, held some resemblance of rationality.”
Evan Thompson ’26 said, “I was definitely shocked at the result, especially the sheer magnitude of victory. I think many, including me, simply underestimated how fatigued Americans are with some of the institutionalized issues in our country. For those affected the most, Trump is a hope who appears to represent everything the current status quo isn't.”
A silent administration
Reactions from outside the Institute have called for respect and support in the aftermath. In an institutional-wide internal email, Todd Golub, Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, acknowledged that “there are many opinions on the outcome,” but called for the community to “maintain a culture of respect for each other as we digest the news today and in the weeks to come.”
At the time of writing, MIT President Sally Kornbluth has yet to release a statement to the Institute community regarding the outcome of the election. Eight years ago, when Trump was first elected President over Hillary Clinton, former President Rafael Reif sent an email to the MIT community the subsequent evening following the election.