Four years after the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton has not left the political atmosphere. Clinton felt like an all-or-nothing candidate. People either loved her for being the first woman ever to be backed by a major party during a U.S. election, or hated her for her controversial time as a career politician. It’s as though someone hit the factory reset button on the election—President Donald Trump’s presidential rallies are still chanting “lock her up,” there is once again talk of a woman’s name on the Democratic ticket.
2020 Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden during one of the two presidential debates
But the 2020 Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, generates much less enthusiasm, at least among WCU students.
“I am settling for Joe Biden,” said WCU senior Brittney Hormel, who has already submitted her vote for Biden via mail-in ballot. Hormel voted for Clinton in 2016, and her strong dislike for President Trump has pushed her towards voting for the Biden campaign.
Harry Wilson, the director of the Institute for Policy & Opinion Research at Roanoke College in Virginia, are calling these voters “hold-their-nose” voters. These voters aren’t necessarily voting for Biden because they like him, but more specifically because they hate the alternative even more.
Many of WCU students are like these voters.
“It’s very sad that these two people are the only two people in our country that are allowed to run for president and actually, you know, be our representative when they are [both] quite, well, one more than the other, awful human beings,” said WCU senior Alexis Quattlebaum, who also submitted her vote for Biden via mail-in ballot. “It’s sad. There are more capable people in our population to run the country, but no, we’re stuck with these jokers. I get Biden is the lesser of two evils, but [. . .] it’s awful.”
As of Oct. 27, national polls show that Biden is leading nationally by 8.8 points. However, a poll taken by Emerson University finds that only 45% of Joe Biden’s supporters said they’re extremely or very excited to vote for him. In contrast, 55% said they’re only mildly or not that excited.
Much of Biden’s problem is that many young voters reject him. While older Democrats are generally regarded as the reason for Biden’s victory, his competitor during the primaries, Bernie Sanders, was overwhelmingly favored by younger voters. The battle between Biden and Sanders was pitted as an ideological one, as Biden is much more moderate than the progressive Sanders (making Trump’s choice to attack Biden as a liberal extremist particularly odd).
Biden’s chance with young or liberal people largely stands with the “hold-your-nose” voters attributed to the Never Trump movement. The idea most of these voters have adopted is that you don’t have to like Biden, you just have to be able to vote for him. Indeed, a survey of WCU students that the WCJ did earlier in the semester found that students who voted for Biden did so more out of a dislike of Trump than anything else.
This story was written for the 2020 Elections Coverage class.
