By Claire Thurston and Nina McCambridge
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On Tuesday, Nov. 5, many students at Carnegie Mellon participated in the 2024 election, voting for presidential and local candidates. The Tartan collected data on how students voted through an exit poll at the University Center.
The presidency went to Donald J. Trump, with Pennsylvania contributing 19 electoral college votes. The flipped states, states that cast Democratic electoral college votes in 2020 and Republican votes in 2024, were Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. Trump recieved 312 electoral votes and Harris recieved 226 electoral votes, creating a wider margin than Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 304 electoral votes. Trump has also won the popular vote.
The senate was also flipped from the previous Democratic majority to a Republican majority. The Democratic party won 45 seats and the Republican party won 52 seats, with 4 seats flipped from Democratic to Republican. One of these flipped seats is Pennsylvania’s own, a seat incumbent Bob Casey has held since 2007. His challenger, Dave McCormick, won the seat within a margin of less than one percent.
The Republicans are also likely to take control (218 seats) of the House of Representatives, although they have not yet won a majority. Pittsburgh is within Pennsylvania’s 12th house congressional district. Democratic incumbent Summer Lee won against Republican challenger James Hayes by 12 percentage points.
The Pennsylvania State Senate is majority Republican and the State House is evenly divided.
Carnegie Mellon had a significant position in the election. Pennsylvania is a swing state representing 19 electoral college votes. Both presidential candidates had campaigned substantially in Pittsburgh, and both held rallies here at the same time the night before the election that were attended by many students.
The Tartan’s exit polling station was set up outside the University Center polling location from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. This location served Carnegie Mellon Housing locations including Resnik, West Wing, Donner House, Kappa Phi Lambda, Spirit House, Woodlawn, and all of the residences on The Hill. Accordingly, the voters at this polling place were almost all Carnegie Mellon students.
The poll was an optional and anonymous form and received 162 responses. The Tartan attempted to ask every student exiting the polling location within the time frame to fill out the poll. Many consented, while some of the students declined to answer the poll. Nearly half of the respondents were first-year students.
In total, 143 students (about 88 percent) indicated having voted for Harris, 14 students (about nine percent) indicated having voted for Trump, four students (about two percent) indicated having voted for another candidate, and one student did not indicate their presidential vote. Data gathered by the Tartan indicates that about 86 percent of people in this precinct (Pittsburgh Ward 14 Dist. 7) voted for Harris, so our exit polling data is slightly skewed towards Harris voters. (In 2020, about 91 percent of voters in this precinct voted for Biden and Harris, so there was a five point shift towards Trump.) Carnegie Mellon students leaned significantly to the left of Americans as a whole, even when adjusting for age and race.
Of the Harris voters, there were 51 men (about 45 percent, out of people who indicated their gender), 58 women (about 51 percent), five nonbinary people (about four percent), and 29 people who did not indicate their gender on the survey.
Of the Trump voters, there were seven men, two women, and five people who did not indicate their gender on the exit poll.
There were two women, zero men, and two people of unspecified gender who voted for another candidate.
Of the Harris voters, there were 46 Asian people (about 40 percent, out of people who indicated their race), 37 white people (about 32 percent), 11 Latin Americans (about nine percent), five Black people (about four percent), one Middle Eastern person (about one percent), and 16 people who described themselves as mixed or listed multiple ethnicities (about 14 percent).
Of the Trump voters who indicated their race, there were four white people, two Asian people, and two people of mixed-race. Two Asian people and two people who didn’t specify a race voted for another candidate.
Of the Harris voters, there were 88 Democrats (about 81 percent, out of those who indicated a party registration), 16 independents (about 15 percent), two Greens, one Libertarian, one Republican, and one person who said they were a “leftist,” which is not a party.
Of the Trump voters who indicated their party affiliation, there were six Republicans and one Democrat. Of those who voted for another candidate and indicated party registration, all were independent.
Respondents were also asked to list up to three of the most important issues to them. Of the Harris voters who answered this question, 39 percent ranked abortion first and 75 percent ranked abortion or women’s rights at all. Other issues that were ranked as top priorities include rights for LGBT+ people, democracy, climate change, the economy, immigration, Palestine, gun control, and “mak[ing] sure Trump isn’t president again.”
Of the Trump voters who answered this question, 66 percent ranked the economy first and 89 percent ranked the economy at all. Other issues that were ranked include immigration, abortion, free speech, and the military.
Of the Harris voters, 85 percent indicated that they voted for exclusively Democratic candidates down-ballot, while the remaining 15 percent indicated that they voted for a mixture. Of the Trump voters, only 41 percent indicated that they voted for exclusively Republican candidates down-ballot, but the remaining 59 percent indicated that their mixture was mostly comprised of Republican candidates.
56 percent of students said “no” when asked whether they thought Carnegie Mellon was a “political campus.” 45 out of 110 of Harris voters, 8 out of 12 Trump voters, and 2 out of 3 other voters thought that Carnegie Mellon was a political campus.
When asked for additional comments, one student said that their peers “don’t understand or simply don’t care” about politics, and another said that “this campus is inevitably and unfortunately apathetic to this election.” One student said that they were “feeling pretty confident for Kamala” and another student said that the election was “scarily close.”
Some students also indicated dissatisfaction with the options presented to them, with one student saying that “I don’t feel great, neither candidate was a good option,” and another student saying that “Lesser evilism is a stain on American politics.”