About 60 students gathered at an election watch party hosted by Northwestern’s chapters of College Democrats, Political Union and BridgeUSA at the Technological Institute on Tuesday evening.
Weinberg junior Clark Mahoney, co-president of NU College Democrats, said the audience’s optimism “slowly deteriorated” as the night went on. Some attendees left early.
In the same building, NU College Republicans was hosting its own watch party.
NU College Republicans Vice President and Weinberg junior Clark Hanlon remembered the watch party’s momentum “picking up” when it became clear that blue wall states like Michigan and Pennsylvania would be colored in former President Donald Trump’s favor.
The Associated Press would later call the presidential race for Trump at 4:34 a.m. CDT on Nov. 6.
Trump’s victory “energized” NU College Republicans that evening, Hanlon said. Hanlon added he was relieved and excited for a party realignment.
“We dodged a bullet with this election,” Hanlon said. “These past four years are not something that we want to repeat.”
He added that he supports Trump administration allies including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk and Tulsi Gabbard.
At an Oct. 27 campaign rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Trump said he would let Kennedy “go wild on health.” Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly referred to Musk as his secretary of “cost cutting.” During a livestream on X, Trump said Musk would create and manage a new commission to ensure that taxes are spent “in a good way.”
Though it’s not clear exactly what position Gabbard might have in the administration, the former Democratic representative from Hawaii reportedly supported Trump by helping him with debate preparations in August.
In response to Tuesday’s results, Weinberg junior Adam Durr, co-president of NU College Democrats, said the Republican Party will soon realize that Trump is incapable of governing effectively.
“The Republican Party is kind of like the dog that caught the car,” Durr said. “They’re going to have to face the fact that their policies are very unpopular and very harmful to Americans.”
For Medill freshman Jasmine Jenkins, the election results raised concerns about the rights of marginalized communities and the future of democracy.
Jenkins said the results were “demoralizing” and will have detrimental consequences for nearly everyone, including the career she intends to pursue.
“This is going to have implications for journalism as a profession, for the media,” she said. “Hopefully outlets that disagree with him are still allowed to exist. I worry about that, especially as a journalism major. I don’t know what’s going to be left four years from now.”
The new federal government will likely have a right-leaning majority in Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court. Weinberg freshman Holly Simon said they were concerned about a possible erosion of checks and balances.
She pointed to possible changes such as abolition of the Department of Education or passage of a national abortion ban that could come with Trump’s administration.
Simon added that they are concerned about the implications of a Trump presidency for women’s rights and LGBTQ+ youth.
“The Harris campaign slogan was ‘not going back,’ and I feel like we’re going to go back,” she said. “I’m really scared of that.”
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