Truly Blue: How Campus Democrats Reacted to Harris’ defeat 

By Jolie Shultz
Editor In Chief
IG: jolie.rebecca

For a vast majority of the Democrat party, the 2024 election didn’t go as hoped. Donald Trump’s election came at the expense of Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris.

“Some of it surprised me a bit,” said Brad Fenwick, Director Of Rimmer Support Services and Faculty Advisor of Hutchinson Community College’s Young Democrats club. “I was hoping that things were going to go a little differently than what it was starting to shape up as.”

Young Democrat member and Wichita freshman, Gage Grossman, shared the same sentiments.

“I’m very unhappy with the results, but, I mean, I only had one vote,” Grossman said.

Fellow club member and Hutchinson sophomore, Peyton Lamb, while disappointed said he wasn’t too surprised by the outcome of the election.

“Based upon the polling before the elections and stuff, I kind of just assumed that Trump was going to win,” he said. “By winning just a couple of those (swing) states you’re able to completely swing things into your favor.”

But with the election in the not-so-distant review mirror, democratic voters are looking to what another presidential term under Trump may look like.

“When I was talking to the women in my life, they fear losing the right to choose, of losing the rights over their own bodies,” Grossman said. “I also have a lot of friends here who are worried about their immigration status.”

He went on to discuss another one of his biggest concerns when it comes to Trump’s upcoming presidential term – members of the LGBTQ+ community losing their rights.

“I have friends who are transgender or non-binary and they need gender-affirming care. And worrying about whether or not their rights are going to be taken away, continuously being demonized by the government and by other people …” Grossman said as his voice trailed off.

“I think we might see a lot of the same stuff that we saw back in 2017, when Trump was first inaugurated. All the right-wing marches, the white supremacist marches, and things like that, which is worrying.”

Fenwick’s concerns for the future involve how the Democratic party rebuilds.

“The Republican Party have been working for quite a while to try to reach out to the working class and the Democrats just haven’t. The Democratic Party has also been very fractured for a long time, everybody has their own little pet ideas whereas the Republicans for a while have been pretty focused on the same issues so maybe that’s what the Democrats need.” he said.

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