Columbia’s Trump Voters

As most Columbians mourn Harris’ loss, Republican students call for dialogue.

Image: Jonas Du/Columbia Sundial

As a New Yorker, I’ve never experienced a morning in Manhattan as quiet as November 6, 2024.

Even the cars, bikes, and ambulance sirens of the City That Never Sleeps seemed to have a certain silence to them. As I scanned my Columbia ID at the 116th Street gates and strolled onto campus, I observed stoic, numb-looking faces (one of such faces was my own).

Columbia the day after the election “felt like a funeral,” to quote a classmate.

That evening, I attended the Columbia University Democrats’ post-election “processing” space. As students entered the Lerner Hall meeting room, they didn’t just seem upset—they were mourning.

Within minutes, the room was packed to the brim. Students took turns sharing their sorrows, anxieties, and dreadful expectations for the next four years. Some conveyed their emotions about what Donald Trump’s second term could mean for LGBTQ and reproductive rights. Others implored their fellow classmates to get involved with grassroots activism. Those who shared their feelings were often met with affirmative “mm’s” and nodding from the rest of the group. There was truly a sense of unity in the room.

But it didn’t last.

Toward the end of the meeting, one Columbia Democrats leader spoke about the importance of not labeling Trump voters as inherently bad and morally devoid as a reaction to Vice President Harris’ defeat. Many students giggled and whispered in disapproval, verbally expressing their distaste at the leader’s suggestion. For the first time all night, there was an ideological rift in the room.

Of course, such hostile sentiments toward Trump voters are not new at Columbia. It’s one reason why meaningful political dialogue has struggled to take hold on campus—many criticize, ridicule, and judge students who support Trump without ever having met one.

To make sense of this common attitude toward Trump supporters on campus, I spoke to six Columbia students who voted for Trump. Three asked me not to use their real names, citing social, academic, and career concerns.

The State of Campus Dialogue

The students I spoke to told me that everywhere on campus—in classes, dining halls, and in just about any casual conversation—there exists a default assumption that Republicans are heartless and morally depraved.

Sara, BC ‘28, told me about one experience she had as a Trump voter at a club event earlier this year.

“I was at a social event, and they started hating on Columbia Republicans. There was just blatant disrespect,” she said. “Then, they started talking about particular people, and I asked them why, what’s your experiences with those people, and they could not answer me as to why they hated them.”

We as a community would be lying to ourselves if we claimed that such experiences are uncommon. I even experienced it myself as I was writing this article—when I mentioned to peers that I was reporting Columbia’s Trump voters, I’ve been met with laughs, scoffs, and equal levels of bewilderment and curiosity.

This view of Trump supporters isn’t exclusive to students. Andrea, a student at Teachers College, told me about her experience in a class where students routinely discuss politics. One of her professors, who Andrea says she’s personally close with, has been unapologetic about her views on conservatives, clearly unaware that Andrea herself voted for Trump. “I can’t possibly think what a conservative has of value to add to my class,” the professor declared during a lecture, according to Andrea.

Ironically, Andrea said she participates more than anyone else and often leads discussions.

Campus politics in America wasn’t always this polarized. One student veteran who voted for Trump, John Olsen, GS ’25, told me that as an undergraduate at a different university in the late 2000s, political assumptions were far less common. “They would never let you know what side they were on. We would have conversations, but you wouldn’t know,” Olsen said.

Today, there’s no question that in the average Columbia classroom, there is a persistent assumption of uniform liberalism. Often, students (and sometimes professors) speak about Republican viewpoints, especially since the election, as if there’s no possibility of a Trump voter actually being in the room. Indeed, a throughline of my discussions with Republican-voting students was their feeling that they’re often perceived without being personally known. Assumptions dominate, while quality cross-aisle dialogue remains uncommon.

It is no surprise, then, that Trump voters don’t feel eager to share their opinions on a campus where their morals are instinctively predetermined by others.

“There’s an implicit fear among conservatives of bringing up a differing view, out of a worry that what happens in the classroom won’t stay in the classroom,” Aum Desai, CC ’28, a Trump voter, told Sundial.

“The foundation of who we are as a people lives past any four-year administration,” Aum Desai, CC ’28, a Trump voter, said. (Image: Amber Yin/Columbia Sundial)

“I enjoy listening to opposing viewpoints and I’m willing to listen, but when I share what I think outside of Republicans [Columbia’s Republican club], the conversation shuts itself down,” Paul, GS ’25, said.

This contempt for listening to right-leaning ideas is a barrier to open political dialogue.

Sara said that even “moderate” opinions cause classmates to “get a bit fired up” in her American politics class. “If I ever even address the other side, or bring up that argument, they do get a bit annoyed, I can tell.”

“I have to feel a certain level of comfort, and that doesn’t happen when I feel like I have to defend myself against your preconceived notions about my character,” Andrea said.

Of course, in no way is Columbia some sort of Handmaid's Tale for conservatives and Republicans—that’s ridiculous. Columbia’s chapters of the Alexander Hamilton Society and BridgeUSA are two politically diverse spaces where right-leaning students said they feel comfortable expressing their full beliefs. The students I spoke to also named several professors who they feel are very intentional about political neutrality and open-mindedness in their pedagogy.

But these people and spaces aren’t the majority. To adapt, right-leaning students have created alternative strategies for sharing their opinions to avoid immediate character judgments.

Andrea explained that she makes sure to use “coded language” in her classes to contextualize her political stances, without revealing that she voted for Trump. As a result, her classmates agree with most of her comments, she says.

Desai said he employs a similar tactic for participating in his political science classes, focusing more on contextualizing his beliefs on individual issues rather than explicitly labeling his views as conservative.

I was appalled to hear these stories—as a community, as we genuinely okay with this? Are we okay with our classmates preemptively censoring themselves, anticipating social censorship from the rest of us?

The biggest problem is that Trump voters and right-leaning students have the unique challenge of carrying the moral burden of proof. Not only do they have to prove to the campus left that they are decent people, but the moment they disclose they voted for Trump, they are forced to play ideological defense. Instead of starting conversations from a point of moral equality, discussions in our community too often begin from a place of moral presumption, leading to both unfair and unproductive exchanges.

When we try to educate ourselves through assumption rather than conversation, a false sense of knowledge takes hold and stymies any chance for us to fully understand the people with whom we disagree.

The Issues

“I’m not going to hide who I am or what I believe in,” Christina Ma, BC ’28, said. Foreign policy is a top issue for Ma, who moved to the United States from China with her family in 2021. “The U.S. has become a laughing stock, and that’s really concerning for me. I don’t think people realize how much of a joke we’ve become as a nation.”

“I’m not going to hide who I am or what I believe in,” Christina Ma, BC ’28, said. (Image: Amber Yin/Columbia Sundial)

Paul similarly echoed frustrations over President Biden’s foreign policy, saying he was “infatuated” with Trump’s “strong stance on NATO.”

“George Bush, Obama, Biden—for decades, we always coddled the EU and NATO. We’ve been carrying them security-wise for the better part of half a century,” he added.

Many of the students I spoke with also expressed concerns about the number of new global conflicts that have coincided with Biden’s presidency. “I do think the emergence of the Ukraine conflict and Israel-Palestine was related to Trump not being in office and having a weaker face of America under Biden,” Sara said.

However, no issue came up more than immigration.

“People shouldn’t be able to enter the country and then disappear. There are definitely good people who want to come here to better themselves and their families, but embedded within these good people are terrorists, foreign intelligence actors, and violent offenders. Too many people are allowed to come in unchecked,” Olsen said.

Reiterating this sentiment, Sara said she believed that illegal immigration has led to an uptick in violence against women.

What proved even more fascinating, however, were the views of student Trump voters who are immigrants themselves.

Andrea is South Asian-American, a naturalized citizen, and a Trump voter. When I asked what her response was to the common liberal argument that a vote for Trump is a vote against human rights, Andrea revealed to me a perspective I had never considered before.

“My response to that is that if we didn’t believe in just rights, we wouldn’t be using our civil rights to vote for Trump. I have certain rights that I prioritize more than other rights,” she explained.

“The other right I have is to a secure border,” she added.

In fact, nationally, immigrant-rich areas tended to shift the most to the right, as many immigrants feel resentment over the Biden administration’s handling of the border.

As Andrea and I began to discuss other hot-button issues such as climate change, her logic became clearer—Trump voters often just have different priorities.

“It’s not that I don’t believe in climate change. It’s just that I prioritize climate change less than the economy, and less than personal freedom, and less than family values. It’s not a blanket, ‘I don’t believe in these things.’ I’m looking at my life, and what I want out of it.”

The same applies to Trump’s often harsh rhetoric: It’s just not important to them.

“Despite the fact that I disagree with how he’s saying it, I like his results. And that’s the thing about Trump,” Paul, who is also a first-generation American, said.

The dominant perception of Trump voters at Columbia is that they cast their ballots out of prejudice and ignorance—that they did not want a woman of color to be president, detest immigrants, and are disinterested in social progress.

Yet this assessment is, simply put, imagined.

After interviewing many of our Republican classmates, it is impossible for me to deny that they voted for Trump out of genuine concern for the nation. They believed Trump was the stronger candidate on the issues that affect day-to-day life in America. ​​Additionally, all of them said there was a disconnect between communities of higher education, like Columbia, and the working class.

“A lot of people outside of this bubble, they just want to live happy lives. They’re not worried about the pseudo-intellectualism of this new-age philosophy,” Ma said.

In other words, the political ethos of our community does not accurately represent, or, more importantly, consider the realities of the rest of the nation.

“The state of political discourse here is detached from the fabric of America,” Andrea said.

In an Ivy League community, we instinctively perceive the rest of the nation from an ivory tower. We analyze, study, and theorize about American realities without immersing ourselves within so many of these realities, all under the pretense of intellectualism. While Columbians represent diverse socioeconomic and geographical backgrounds, we are still living in an environment disconnected from the rest of the nation.

This might indeed be the point of universities—to educate students with knowledge and expertise not readily available to the general public. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the drawbacks of receiving an education within a bubble.

Indeed, Columbia is a bubble not only in the sense that it’s ideologically insular, but also in the sense that it is intellectually fragile—conservative beliefs are too often perceived as threatening, rather than productive ideas to reckon with. In fact, when I spoke with Ma at the Sundial, a passerby rapidly turned her head and stared at us when she heard Ma utter the word “Republican.”

Students who voted for Trump live in an environment where their views are seen as something to be addressed, corrected, and disproven, as opposed to considered and discussed with an open mind.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

The Opportunity Before Us

For many, engaging with the ideas and beliefs of Trump voters can elicit a sense of unease, distress, and anger.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Politics and dialogue aren’t supposed to be comfortable. They aren’t meant to make us feel neutral or indifferent. The issues that matter most fill us with passion, motivation, and ambition. Just because conversing with those who disagree with us can fill us with strong emotions does not mean that doing so isn’t beneficial.

For example, liberals and Democrats can use dialogue with Trump voters as an opportunity to learn the genuine perspective of Americans who handed the president-elect a popular vote and electoral college victory.

“There’s an opportunity for conversations with conservative voices on campus to understand, ‘What might the Democratic party be missing out on? Why are they not connecting with middle America?’” Andrea said. “Listening to conservative voices on campus can be a way to get that information.”

For many Columbia students, it is impossible to fathom Trump voters as moral people, or as anything other than people who have decided to excuse felony convictions and sexual assault allegations. But whether we choose to believe it or not, the Trump voters of our community are a genuinely thoughtful and ideologically diverse group of individuals.

When we make definitive moral judgments instead of robust and respectful dialogue, we lose out on a learning opportunity, even if we do not change our minds. When I asked each student I interviewed if they’d be willing to engage in more frequent political dialogue with liberals, they all said yes—without hesitation.

In these polarized times, we must remember that disagreement is part of our nation’s beauty and that living in an ideologically pluralistic society is an important part of being an American.

“The foundation of who we are as a people lives past any four-year administration,” Desai said.

I know for a fact that all Columbia students want our nation to succeed, prosper, and be the best version of itself. But we will never progress if we succumb to the temptation of refusing to acknowledge or converse with the other side.

As we move forward as a community from this election, we have an opportunity to cultivate a campus environment where conservative and Republican thought is welcome and even encouraged. On our campus, let’s begin to treat dialogue with Trump voters as a force for good, and not as some sort of insidious platform for prejudice and hate.

The next time you meet a classmate who you suspect may have voted for Trump, I implore you to remember: It would be a grave mistake to write off political pluralism, one of the greatest strengths of our nation, as a weakness. Our education depends on it.

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Mr. Nagin is a junior in the Trinity College Dublin Dual BA program studying political science. He is the deputy editor of Sundial.