Gen Z on the Future of US Politics

With the recent 2024 election, the students at MCHS filled out an anonymous, no-questions required survey of ten questions about how they feel going into these next four years with our new presidential elect, Donald J. Trump. Remember, having no questions required makes the total votes different for each question. To get a basis of where the students stood, they answered "Yes," "No," or "Somewhat" to the question "Are you happy with how the election went?". The results are as follows: 53.7% (65 votes) said "Yes," 34.7% (42 votes) said "No," and 11.6% (14 votes) said "Somewhat."

Now that we know where the students stand, we can ask the harder-hitting questions. The next question the students answered was, "Did you ever switch candidate/party leading up to the election?". Where it was a landslide of a question with 81% (98 votes) answering "No," 11.6% (14 votes) answering "Never had one decided," 5% (6 votes) answering "Yes," and 2.5% (3 votes) answering that they switched multiple times. These results show how made up the students' minds were heading into this election; most people had their candidate chosen from the start.

The third question the students faced was, "What do you think is to come with our new presidential elect, Donald J. Trump?" with 35.8% (43 votes) replying, "Good," 26.7% (32 votes) "More good than bad," 19.2% (23 votes) replied "More bad than good," and 18.3% (22 votes) replied "Bad." An MCHS junior, Kale Cumbie, gave a quote, saying, "I believe the economy will be in a great state just as it was with the first Trump administration."

The fourth question was about the electoral college and how they feel about it, where a staggering 67.6% (75 votes) said it "Needs some changes," 24.3% (27 votes) said "Doesn't need revamped," and 8.1% (9 votes) said it "Needs revamped completely." The results show that overall, the students at MCHS are interested in seeing the electoral college receive some adjustments.

Halfway through the survey, at question number five, students were asked "Does your family and/or friend-group discuss politics?" Where there was a pleasing blowout of 61.2% (74 votes) saying both family and friends discuss politics, 19% (23 votes) said their family does, and 9.9% (12 votes) for friend-group, as well as 9.9% (12 votes) for neither. These results should be rather exciting or at least pleasant to see that, for the most part, students are talking about politics with their family and/or friends, which is always good because that keeps from being in an echo chamber of thoughts and opinions, and allows new information to be taken in.

The next question the students encountered was, "Do you think historians will look back at this election as a turning point for the country in the future?" Where the results are quite the mix-up, with 49.2% (58 votes) saying "Yes, for good," 33.1% (39 votes) saying "Yes, for bad," and 17.8% (21 votes) voting "No." Observably, the majority of students believe this will be a turning point for the better or worse, while a few think historians will not credit this election as a turning point in any way. Luise Suppnger, a sophomore German exchange student here at MCHS, stated, "I do think there will be a lot of change to expect, both in good and bad ways. I hope he will use his power wisely so it won't be a turning point to a less democratic and less open America. America is a world power, and I hope Trump will not cut off relations with other countries."

After answering the previous question, they were asked, "How do you think this election will impact your future and the issues you care about?" Where the results were nearly the same for the prior question, 54.6% (64 votes) answered "Impact in a good way," 34.5% (41 votes) answered "Impact in a bad way," and 10.9% (12 votes) answered "Non-impactful." The results convey that the vast majority of students think the recent 2024 election will impact their lives in some way, with most of them thinking it will positively impact them. Kale Cumbie said, "I am hoping that President Trump will fix inflation; lowering prices back to what they once were. This would be beneficial to all."

To see where the students got their political information, they answered the following question, "How did you get your information for the election?" The results are as follows, the top answer was 28.3% (33 votes) for "Traditional news outlets and social media," 25% (30 votes) answered "Both, but more social media," 13.3% (16 votes) saying they strictly use traditional news outlets like NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, etc., 12.5% (15 votes) answered they strictly use social media platforms like X (Formally known as Twitter), YouTube, podcasts, Instagram, etc., 10% (12 votes) answered "Both, but more traditional news," and the other 14 votes were "other/neither". These results show that the students here at MCHS use both social media and traditional news but tend to use social media more. When combining the "Both, but more traditional news outlets" with the votes of strictly conventional news outlets, you get 23.3% (28 votes). Compared to adding "Both, but more social media" to students strictly using social media, you get 37.5% (45 votes), a blowout.

Question nine was, "Do you think the community and school provided you with resources to understand the political process and issues?" This question resulted in another landslide of 47.5% (47 votes) responding "No," 30.3% (30 votes) responding "Somewhat," and 22.2% (22 votes) replying "Yes.". The overwhelming results convey a clear message: the Madison community has some work to do with informing voters about the political process and issues. As the 47/120 student votes said, they weren't adequately prepared for election time.

The final question the students answered was, "Are you engaged in current politics, and will you be an active citizen (vote) when you are able to, if not already?" Where it was yet another landslide, in a good way. 68.6% (83 votes) answered "Yes," while 20.7% (25 votes) answered "Somewhat," and 10.7% (13 votes) answered "No." This question can help represent the consistency and quality of this poll, as the students who voted "No" are not engaged in politics. This resulted in the margin of error being around 10.7% for this poll.

The last thing Luise Suppnger, our sophomore exchange student from Germany, stated was, "I think a lot of people hope that Trump will regulate immigration and fix inflation. I think many people admire Trump's strength and hope he makes the US a very strong, powerful, wealthy and independent nation."

Kale Cumbie also had one more thing to say: "I think he [Donald Trump] will turn the country around for the better, creating jobs, strengthening the economy, and making America great once again." He went on to say, "I think this election will impact my future by putting the country into the hands of good people who aren't going to keep ruining it like the current party in office." This shows one patriotic view from what seems to be many here at MCHS; whether the students are Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, etc., they seem to be engaged and looking for information, which is essential.