Lucy Sheldon ’27
Staff Writer
In the early hours of Wednesday, Nov. 6, major news outlets had called the presidential election results, declaring former president Donald Trump as the winner. Later that same day, the Political Science department held an event in McCook Auditorium with an estimated 20-plus students and faculty audience to discuss the results and anticipate what the next four years had in store for Americans. The panelists for the event included Serena Laws, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Law; Sam Hayes, Visiting Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Law; Dang Do, Assistant Professor of Political Science; and Kevin J. McMahon, Jorn R. Reitemeyer, Professor of Political Science.
To open the panel, Laws began with a few preliminary thoughts on the 2024 election, expressing what she found to be unique about this presidential race. The first aspect of the election she highlighted was the sheer volume of money involved. There were large numbers of donors that generated well over a billion dollars for both Harris and Trump. Another element that Lawes touched upon was how American democracy was heavily emphasized throughout this campaign and, in many respects, framed to be on the ballot for this election.
Hayes approached this election from a different lens. He centered his remarks on a few different election laws and amendments made to them that he found to be “helpful or [at least] help us understand what happened during this election.” Honing in on two battleground states, Georgia and North Carolina, Hayes emphasized the alterations made to their election laws after 2020 to expedite the process of counting the results. Examples of some of the election law amendments include the Senate Bill 202 which was passed in 2021. Of the many obstacles it created for Georgia voters, it drastically reduced the window to request a mail-in ballot for citizens. In North Carolina, there is now a strict deadline for when mail-in ballots can be received in order to be considered: by Election Day at 7:30 p.m. instead of extending it to 72 hours after Election Day. Another change in North Carolina’s voting laws, is they can reject a mail-in ballot where the address notification verification appeared undeliverable.
Beyond Hayes’ discussion of voter laws, he also focused on the disruptions that took place throughout the country as people were casting their votes in person. Despite the numerous bomb threats, none seemed to have any merit and ultimately posed no danger to humans or the electoral process.
He rounded off his opening remarks by mentioning the changes made to the number of congressional seats each state had after 2020 and, thus, the amount of electoral college votes each state was allocated. The states that had been reappropriated, either in gaining or losing electoral college votes, included California, Oregon, Montana, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Florida. Hayes explained that part of the reason Trump gained such a substantial lead early on in the night was that many states he initially won, like Texas and Florida, counted for more in the 2024 election than they did in the 2020 election.
After each panelist gave a brief summary of their thoughts on this presidential election cycle, the moderator and audience could direct questions towards them about what a second term for Trump might entail. The moderator posed a question to the panelists: “considering the Republicans already have control over the executive, judiciary, and will likely take control over the Senate and the House of Representatives, what’s next for policy over the next four years?”
While this elicited some laughter from panelists, due to the lofty, imposing question, Lawes was the first to jump in with her thoughts, stating “there were many things keeping Trump from doing a lot of the things he was interested in doing during the first term. Some of it was from his own inexperience, some of it was from the guardrails coming from the more established republicans that were a much bigger force then and are really not in the mainstream party anymore.” She added that in all likelihood, Trump will be far better organized and intentional with the issues he tackles during his second term.
While Do acknowledged Lawes’ view that Trump will likely be more organized and capable of executing many of the policies and acts he put forth during his campaign, he placed his ability to seamlessly complete them on the size of the majority Republicans will likely have over Democrats in the House. However, Do added that nonetheless “there will be a lot of structural changes that have long-lasting implications, like appointing federal judges to benches is going to be a major priority, reformatting the executive branch and all of the agencies that are there too. You will see a lot of appointments.”
McMahon speculated that given the election results — beyond just the presidential race but also the outcome for the Senate and likely the House — it is not a question of whether Trump’s policies will be passed but where he might begin. One initiative that McMahon speculated we might see passed under Trump early on is the deportation of 15 million immigrants.
In light of some concerns expressed by audience members that Trump can reshape American democracy and policy without stint, Lawes reminded everyone that there still remain some barriers in place that could hinder Trump’s ability to complete his entire agenda. In 2016, when Trump threatened to repeal Obamacare, there was a popular movement mobilized by citizens to express their objections and prevent him from carrying it out. Laws emphasized to Trinity students that there is a role for citizens to play to prevent unpopular policies from being enacted. A similar view was shared by McMahon, as well as the other panelists stating that “Democratic governors will play an important role in resisting some Trump policies. Whether or not they are Executive Orders or not, a lot of times you have to rely on state authorities to actually implement the idea, so I am sure Democratic governors will play a role in that.” He added that the seat for senate positions is only a two year period, and the 2026 midterm elections can play a crucial role in redistributing power between Democrats and Republicans.
In response to how students should walk away from this election and what they can do if these results were disappointing to them, Do seemed to encapsulate a shared sentiment that it is their hope that students get more involved and refuse to become disengaged from politics.
It is difficult to convey the extent of my dismay about this discussion of the recent election. Given an opportunity to discuss what was unique about it, the panelists appear to have evaded the most obvious and salient fact: that the Republican candidate and former president had attempted to subvert the previous democratic election and, when that failed, aided and abetted an insurrection. And that despite this, 75+ million voters either ignored these facts or, worse, actively embraced the former president’s efforts to overthrow our democratic system of government.
That 75+ million American voters might have different views from you on the feasibility of tariffs or the extent of regulation needed for certain industries is not surprising. That these same Americans have different views from you on whether the attempt to subvert democracy ought to be politically disqualifying is alarming. It suggest a catastrophic failure of thinking that we have not seen before in this country but which led to the darkest period of the previous century.
Surely this merited at least a passing mention by the panelists.