Tone of election disappoints young voters

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The tone of this year’s presidential election has not gone unnoticed on young voters.

“This has gotta be the most negative election that there’s ever been,” Ohio Wesleyan University junior Tom Dolan said. Dolan, 20, is majoring in politics and government. His comments reflect the disappointment that young people in Delaware and around the country are feeling in response to the election.

Just 32 percent of U.S. millennials think the election process is working, according to a Gallup Poll conducted in April.

“I think that everything is just going terribly wrong,” Charlotte Gross said.

Gross is an 18-year-old OWU freshman who is double majoring in art history and French. On Nov. 8, she will vote for the first time.

Her disappointment was echoed by a fellow freshman.

“Society is just going downhill,” said the student, 18, who spoke on condition of anonymity. She said she opposes Hillary Clinton and “the thing is that, people on Hillary’s side, they get really aggressive about stuff and I don’t want them yelling at me about my opinion.

She likely won’t vote because, “I don’t like either [candidate] that much. They both say things that are completely rude.”

OWU senior Michael Durfee, 23, has been struck by the divisiveness of the campaigns.“It’s tearing a lot of people and families apart because (the candidates) are so drastically different,” he said.

“If you put a (Donald) Trump sign in your lawn, you might find out that now your neighbor hates you and vice versa,” Durfee said.

Having voted in the previous presidential election, Durfee has found the contrast between the two to be striking. “The last [election] was definitely not as … filled with junk as this one. The candidates actually respected each other,” he said.

Durfee intends to vote for Clinton.

“I kinda wanna just, like, get rid of the parties and focus more on the people,” said Dalton Burke, 22. Burke works as a personal assistant at a local store and is attending culinary school. “(Party politics) are definitely dividing the nation and I think we should think as a coherent whole,” he said.

Dolan said that when he considers this election he thinks, “We can’t let this happen again.”

Megan Neary

For The Gazette

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