Charlotte Korer ’27
Copy Editor Intern
On Nov. 5, Vice President Kamala Harris lost the presidential election to Donald Trump. For many, this felt like a repeat of the 2016 election when Trump beat Hillary Clinton. For the majority of Scripps students, this was their first time voting, so Harris’ loss left a general sense of shock around campus. Many students had anticipated that this was finally the election that a woman of color would come to hold the most powerful position in the United States. Instead, Trump’s victory was a rude awakening for the blue bubble at Scripps College.
“My initial feelings as the results were coming in and it was leaning towards Trump was honestly dread,” Mekala Kumar ’27 said via email. “I couldn’t understand how after everything that he has said and done while in office and out, [it] didn’t matter when people were voting.” This despair reflects the shock that many Democrats in the Scripps community have had to face since the election: America still believes in Donald Trump.
“I think that when I was first watching the live results, I was initially surprised but once it settled, I wasn’t surprised,” Sofia Campagna ’27 said. Being in an overwhelmingly blue state like California, and at a historically women’s liberal arts college, it was easy for many to get swept up in Harris’ underdog campaign and feel that her victory was inevitable.
“I had been riding a high of optimism after seeing the collective excitement about the possibility of a Harris presidency, and when she lost, it weighed me down even more,” Kumar said.
Campagna expressed a similar sentiment. “I believed the momentum that the Kamala Harris campaign pushed forward, I felt all the general media’s enthusiasm for her campaign and I believed it,” she said.
But spirits quickly fell on the night of Nov. 5, when the news of Harris’ loss was solidified. Student energy was low the following week, as many processed what this meant for the United States and the young women who attend Scripps College.
“Over the last days since the election, I’ve been trying to just carry on with my regular life,” Kumar said. “There’s nothing we can really do but keep on moving.”
Many people are following Kumar’s lead and taking post-election life day by day. Looking at the bigger picture felt overwhelming for students who believed in Harris’ campaign.
“I spent the day after the election sinking into a pit of terror as I thought about living through the next four years as a young woman,” Evelyn Seraya Cantwell ‘28 said in a conversation with The Voice.
Others are coping by trying to understand why the majority of Americans voted for the former president.
“My biggest thing was realizing how much fear and how much people in the working class are genuinely struggling and how easily that is co-opted by conservatives and politicians in general,” Campagna said. “And I think that is the biggest failing of the Democratic party, was to actually address those real fears people have because just talking about how the economy is just on an upward trend and how it has recovered, but if people are still feeling negative impacts, then they’re not going to care that the GDP is growing or that inflation is actually down because they’re still struggling to pay their bills.”
As things have settled down in the weeks following the election, students are regrouping and preparing themselves for another Trump presidency. Specifically, students are reevaluating the blue bubble at Scripps.
“It is easy to get caught up in a more progressive culture. But it’s just not historically true,” Campagna said.
Students highlighted the importance of recognizing the differences between the political culture at a predominantly wealthy and white HWC and the rest of the United States.
“We are in an incredibly unique microcosm here at Scripps because we have each other, united under common values,” Cantwell said. “We mustn’t forget the power we have as educated, informed, and thoughtful young women.”
Despite the uncertainty of the current political climate, many Scripps students have said that it’s unlikely much at Scripps will change with the beginning of another Trump presidency.
“I don’t think anything at Scripps will change with the results,” Kumar said. “From my perception, the general feeling of the campus is liberal which will continue no matter what happens. I would like to see more engagement with students to get more people off-campus registered to vote through phone banking, trip outreach, and even informational on-campus activities.”
“It is time to recenter, rethink, and eventually, reorganize,” Cantwell said.
“Even though this election was lost, and we may be entering an unprecedented time in the history of the US, we can’t give up the fight,” Kumar said. “To all my fellow students: engage, organize, and protest. We must keep fighting for what we want. It might take a while but in the end it will be worth it. Don’t be afraid to use your voice and demand your needs.”
Photo Courtesy: Frances Walton ’27
