Griffin Geiken, a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse junior, cast his first presidential ballot in November for President-elect Donald Trump with one issue at the front of his mind: the economy.
“I am concerned about my ability to build a life after graduation when everything is so expensive,” Geiken said, expressing his view the country was better off during Trump’s first term.
Geiken isn’t alone in his reasoning.
Two weeks ago, thousands more college students across UW System campuses voted for Trump compared to 2020, according to data from John Johnson at Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center.
At UW-Whitewater, Trump improved by roughly five points in the two on-campus wards, and at UW-Oshkosh’s central campus ward, the Democratic margin of victory fell from 21% in 2020 to just 0.8% — or 12 votes — in 2024. At UW-Madison, campus wards swung 14 points to the right.
Trump still lost the majority of college voters in 2024, but he did shave Democratic margins, which had an outsized impact in a state like Wisconsin, where five of the last seven presidential elections have been decided by less than a point. Students told The Daily Cardinal they placed their vote for Trump because of the economy, immigration and foreign policy.
UW-La Crosse campus wards veer right
Few UW campuses shifted toward Trump like UW-La Crosse.
In 2020, President Joe Biden carried the four wards around the UW-La Crosse campus by more than 1,000 votes. In 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris won by just 77 votes.
Trump even flipped two of those wards. Ward 9 at the heart of campus went from a 14-point Biden win in 2020 to a 7-point Trump win in 2024. Ward 11, which serves a number of off-campus apartments, swung nearly 39 points toward Trump this year. Biden won by 388 votes in 2020. Trump won by 66 in 2024.
Carter Lefevre-Tomlin voted for Trump in 2024. Just a few weeks ago, he refounded the College Republicans chapter on campus.
He admitted other issues, like abortion, were weak points for Republicans, but he argued concerns over the economy were a bigger priority for voters.
“How are you supposed to manage all that stuff when you have a failing economy and no border control, inflation is through the roof? You’ve got to focus on – kind of go back to basics first – what really matters the most to most people,” Lefevre-Tomlin said.
In the weeks since Trump’s win, Lefevre-Tomlin said he’s been impressed by Trump’s “not messing around attitude.” He cited an interview he saw on TikTok of Trump “border czar” appointee Tom Homan, where he laid out his plan for deporting illegal immigrants.
But it wasn’t just conservative activists who were swayed by Trump’s message. Trump also resonated with some first-time voters, like junior Zach Joslin.
Joslin said he chose Trump because of immigration, foreign policy and inflation.
“I hope to be able to see the country improve with less crime from illegal immigrants,” Joslin said. “Also, I hope to see improvements toward affordable housing and prices for necessities such as food and gas.”
Students ‘anxious’ over Trump victory, future
Despite shifts at schools like La Crosse, UW students overwhelmingly backed Harris statewide. And for them, election night was far from a victory lap.
“I ended up going to bed early because I had so much anxiety, and when I woke up, I saw the results and, to be very honest and open, I immediately just kind of broke down into tears,” UW-Green Bay student Karime Galaviz said. “I was really upset. I went to go see my dad and he kind of just hugged me and was saying how sorry he was that we're experiencing this.”
Galaviz voted for Harris in part because she advocated for marginalized communities.
UW-Green Bay was a bright spot in an otherwise bleak year for Democrats. Harris increased the Democratic margin on campus from 7.2% in 2020 to 20.8% in 2024. Galaviz said long lines at campus polling sites were “encouraging” and gave her a sense of “anticipation”.
“It was kind of a really weird vibe on campus…it felt very depressing,” she said.
Other Democratic voters, like Chris Parish, say Harris’ loss was disappointing but not surprising.
Parish, a UW-Oshkosh senior studying secondary education who voted for Harris, said she could have done more to appeal to young men, who he said tend to “lean right” and like Trump.
“I guess the way that the election cycle was going, the weeks or the weeks beforehand, I just had a worse and worse feeling that Democrats in general just didn't get the reach that they needed to,” Parish said.
UW-Madison political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center Barry Burden told the Cardinal a primary reason Harris may have fallen short of Biden’s performance appeared to be Trump’s appeal to younger men.
The gender shift “is based at least partly on beliefs that Trump would be better able to improve the economy,” Burden said.
Parish said two issues were at the top of his mind: women's rights and gun safety.
“I care about my mom, my sister, my girlfriend, my peers. You know, I love these people, and I just want them to be treated the same way as me,” Parish said.
Parish will start student teaching in the spring, and by next fall, he hopes to have a classroom of his own. But with a second Trump term looming, he worries what the future of his profession might look like, pointing to Title IX, which Trump has proposed eliminating.
“I'm worried about federal funding for schools. If federal funding is cut, that's going to lead to larger classroom sizes, which is already an issue with the teacher shortage we're going through,” Parish said.
Nick Bumgardner is a senior staff writer at The Daily Cardinal covering state news and politics. You can follow him on Twitter at @nickbum_.
