Two colleges in the Midwest offer their students unique voting experiences
With two vice-presidential candidates originally from Midwestern states and a controversial poll from the Des Moines Register putting Kamala Harris 3 points ahead of Donald Trump in Iowa, the Midwest drew significant attention in the 2024 presidential election. For two Midwestern Universities — St. Olaf College and Drake University — this impacted students’ attitudes and experiences surrounding the election.
Additionally, with the emergence of trends like “Kamala is brat” with Generation Z voters on platforms like TikTok, all eyes were on young voters.
Heather Jones-Brown, the board chair at Vision Leads, emphasizes the importance of encouraging young people to be civically engaged.
“If we don’t continue to have that engagement from people as they become old enough to vote themselves, we will not have a sustainable democracy long-term,” Jones-Brown said.
Vision Leads is an organization that creates civic engagement opportunities across the state of Iowa. Jones-Brown said the organization has focused on the voter process this year.
“The drive, and the commitment, and the passion is there with young voters,” Jones-Brown said.
St. Olaf: a shining example of student voter turnout
Located in Northfield, Minnesota, St. Olaf College received recognition from [the] ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge — a challenge recognizing excellence in nonpartisan student democratic engagement — for its student voter engagement. Of the more than 500 colleges and universities in the challenge, St. Olaf had the highest rate.
In 2020, 87.6% of St. Olaf students voted, compared to a national rate of 66%. In 2022, 67.7% of students voted.
St. Olaf has a nonpartisan Election Ambassador program that relies on interpersonal contact rather than online or social media strategies. These ambassadors use their networks on campus to get students to pledge to vote, then follow up with them as Election Day approaches.
“We are all about interpersonal contact,” Election Coordinator, Roxi Wessell, told Urban Plains in an email. “Research shows that using existing student networks to personally encourage students to vote works. This year, we had over 120 Election Ambassadors who collected Pledges to Vote from peers in their classes, sports, music groups, clubs, and beyond.”
Wessell sees St. Olaf’s location on a small, Midwestern campus as an advantage for their work related to civic engagement. The combination of Midwestern neighborly-ness and smaller school sizes allows students to connect in this way.
“We are starting on third base here at St. Olaf,” Wessel said. “As a small residential college, the interpersonal networks we rely on in our Election Ambassador program are a great way to spread information to the majority of the student body.”
Overall, Wessel said that civic engagement is a central part of St. Olaf’s identity as an institution.
“Voting is a culture at St. Olaf,” Wessel said. “I was very grateful to be in a place where I didn’t have to teach myself about the intricacies of voting my first year… I think our voting culture is another way we reinforce our commitment to helping each other.”
Wessell emphasizes the importance of young people, especially college students, getting involved in the voting process early.
“Voting has an inertia,” Wessel said. “We want to encourage young people to vote because if they start voting now, they are more likely to become lifelong voters, increasing levels of civic engagement across the country for generations to come.”
Iowa’s same-day registration increases voting accessibility — and confusion — at Drake University.
23 states and Washington, D.C., have implemented same-day voter registration. Students at Drake University in Iowa can register on Election Day with a form of ID and proof of residence. For residential students, Drake even provides the necessary documentation for proof of residency.
“I never, ever, am going to force somebody to switch their registration to Iowa, but I always want to tell people that that’s an option, just because not everybody knows that,” Drake Voter and Civic Engagement Peer Chloe Lepak said. “I always say, if you lay your head to sleep there at night, you can vote there.”
Drake was also recognized by ALL IN in 2022. In the 2020 presidential election, 80.4% of Drake students voted.
Lepak appreciates Iowa’s same-day voter registration processes, which make voting more accessible for students from out-of-state.
“Iowa’s voting process is really friendly compared to a lot of other states,” Lepak said. “You can register same-day here. So even if students didn’t realize until Election Day that they could register to vote, totally fine. They can just show up to the polls.”
However, Lepak also encounters challenges because of Iowa’s same-day voter registration. For example, it can cause students who vote in their home states to miss important deadlines.
“Some students assume that the voting laws are similar in other states,” Lepak said. “So they’ll be like, ‘Oh, I’ll just register to vote the day of in my state,’ but that’s unfortunately not an option for a lot of states.”
Lepak believes it is essential for universities to provide students with the tools they need to be able to vote, whether they vote in Iowa or their home states.
“It is partially the university’s responsibility to make sure that their students have the proper voting information,” Lepak said. “Of course, the student does have the responsibility to research which candidate they specifically will vote for, but I do think the university should provide the resources of, this is the deadline, this is the polling place if you live on campus, etc.”
Lepak has seen an increase in Drake students’ civic involvement this year. She also sees young voters engaging in unique ways, noting that she has seen students on both sides of the political spectrum show interest in judges who are petitioning for reinstatement who supported Iowa’s six-week abortion ban.
“I think there’s more passion behind voting in this [election] specifically because people are more excited about the candidates and what they could provide,” Lepak said.
Young voters affect the results of the 2024 presidential election
Following the election, The Guardian reported that Harris won voters ages 18 to 29 by six points. However, young voters played a significant role in Trump’s ultimate victory, with a 16-point gender gap between young men and young women in favor of Trump. 40.8 million members of “Gen Z” were eligible to vote in 2024, with 8.3 million newly eligible voters since the 2022 midterms.
Jones-Brown — who started her career in civic engagement as a precinct captain for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign — has noticed a cultural shift. She said that young voters have less access to voting resources through their schools, but those involved are more passionate and engaged than in previous years.
“It was easy for me to ask questions and find places to get involved,” Jones-Brown said. “I don’t know if it’s the same anymore, but for anybody that I do work with now, they already know what is at stake, and they already know that the country kind of put the cruise control on for a little bit, and now we’re in a situation that’s a lot different than it used to be.”