UT Students Voted Heavily for Harris. They Told Us Why.

By Alex Lamb

Photography By Alex Lamb

Reporting Texas

Although she lost the presidential election to Donald Trump, Kamala Harris won majority support from voters living in and around the University of Texas at Austin.

In the five precincts surrounding UT, Harris’ support ranged from 55% to 68%, and she earned more votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. Trump has seen his support in those precincts shrink each election, from 30% in 2016 to 28% in 2020 and just 17% this time, an analysis of voting trends by Reporting Texas shows.

But turnout rates in the UT-area precincts dropped this election. After hitting 67% in 2016 and 78% in 2020, turnout fell to 61% this election, mirroring an 8.5 percentage point drop in turnout in Travis County as a whole. Countywide, Trump managed to earn 9,276 more votes this year than in 2020, while Harris earned 37,607 votes fewer than Biden.

“If I’m being honest, I’m not a fan of either presidential candidate,” said Samuel G., a 20-year-old corporate communications junior. “But comparing my options, if I have to choose one, Kamala’s policies benefit me the most, despite not being a huge fan of some of her style of leadership at times, or some of her policies.”

Reporting Texas interviewed students as they emerged from the polls, finding a wide range of opinion and motivation behind their votes. Many students cited worries about women’s rights, immigrants, the LGBTQ community and the stability of the nation as their motivations for voting. Many asked that their full names not be published out of fear of social or familial fallout.  

“It’s been tense,” said T.W., a 29-year-old UT staff member who voted for Harris. “I feel like now is a very scary time for a lot of people like myself who are people of color or women. We’re fearing that we’re having our rights taken away. We live in a time where people are spewing hate, and it’s just fearmongering, where people are so angry with each other that you can’t speak about politics. I feel like it never used to be like that.”

Keiley C., a 19-year-old supply chain sophomore and Harris supporter, said before the results came a Trump victory would mean she would, “be fearing for some of my family, as I am Hispanic and first-generation, and for my rights as a woman.”

Megan Z., an 18-year-old electrical and computer engineering freshman and Harris voter said, “The society we live in today, I feel like being raped and having to keep the baby is so morally unjust. Everything under Trump is so extreme and so, dare I say, cultish.”

“Anything he says,” she continued, “they’ll just take it to the extreme and they’ll take his words and hold onto them, even if they don’t make sense or are disrespectful to another human being’s rights.”

One Trump voter said much of what people have said about his candidate is untrue.

 “I got fed up with a lot of the blatant lies that I saw towards him in the media,” said Christian Luensmann, a 22-year-old biology senior, adding, “I like his policies on the border and immigration.”  

“The thing I don’t like about him is his narcissism,” Luensmann said. “I think he doesn’t admit when he’s wrong. But I do believe, to his own best ability, he doesn’t lie to us.”

Another Trump voter, Jay Vargas, a 19-year-old neuroscience sophomore, while voicing support for Trump also conceded, “I don’t think Kamala is a bad person. I don’t even think that both the candidates are great. I just believe that Trump will do better in terms of helping the country more and avoiding wars.”

Several Harris voters said they did not agree with her support for Israel’s ongoing military response against Gaza and the growing violence in the region, though they still preferred her to the alternative.

“She’s not my favorite candidate,” said one 20-year-old female Harris supporter who requested anonymity out of fear of her family finding out who she voted for. “Obviously there’s controversies in Israel, but I think she aligned with my values most.”

That student said her fear of being identified stemmed from the intensity of political division these days. 

“Politics I feel never really played such a role in people’s lives, and people never really worshiped a candidate like this one. It’s kind of scary to see people idolize someone that’s just a politician,” she said. “It’s been weird to see people who are your friends and family get swept up in all that craziness.” 

Many of the student voters were only in middle school when Trump first was elected, but nevertheless said they could tell that politics and civil norms in the United States have changed in recent years.   

“Even from when our parents were little to now, women have less rights,” said D.D., a 20-year-old natural sciences sophomore and Harris supporter. “That’s just so crazy that it happened during the time that I was growing up, while I was alive, during a time of progression. It seems like a step back, a huge step back.”

“It changed in 2015 when Trump started running,” said Shayan B., a 20-year-old math junior. “From that point, it became less of a civil, ‘we’re trying to improve our future’ thing to ‘us vs. them’. He polarized everything.”  

“I see a lot of hate from the opposition,” said Conor Nerren, a 20-year-old English junior. “It’s a very unsettling thing.” 

“Honestly, I am a little afraid of some civil unrest,” continued Samuel G. “If I can compare political parties to sports teams, I think this country is doing something wrong,” he said. “It just seems ridiculous to me that we even let it get to this point.” 

But Carly N., 34, a Harris supporter and graduate English literature student, tried to maintain a broader perspective. “The reminder that I try to keep in the back of my mind is that there are lots of times in our country when things feel very scary and very heavy and very violent,” she said. “It’s not unprecedented. It is something that we have seen the other side of multiple times as a country, even though we are a relatively young democracy. So, I’m just trying to maintain hope that we can do that again,” she said.