Swing State Students Navigate Deep Blue Mass. Election

For Michigan native Uchenna Monplaisir ’27, living in Massachusetts for an election year has been a shock.

“I don’t think [people] understand how big it is when you’re back home, because it is literally everything and everywhere, and it’s all-consuming,” she said. (Monplaisir is a staff writer for The Student.)

Michigan is consistently an important swing state in presidential elections. This election year, like many other students from so-called “purple states,” Monplaisir has had to adjust from living in a place with more diverse political views to a distinctly liberal environment in Massachusetts. Many students from swing states expressed worry for their home states in light of next week’s election, and a feeling of dissonance at living in a more solidly blue environment.

Other students hailing from swing states agreed with the sentiment that, at home, the 2024 presidential election has felt all-consuming. Shreya Guggilla ’28 noted that in her home state of Arizona, “There’s a lot of conflicting signs everywhere, it’s like ‘Oh there’s a Kamala sign right here,’ and then two blocks down there’s a Trump sign.” Bombardment with political signage, ads, and campaigns becomes a daily occurrence when living in a swing state.

In data gathered by The New York Times comparing the campaign trails of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, both parties have demonstrated intense focus on support from swing states. Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 25, Harris has held 33 events in swing states; Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee: 36; Trump: 29; and JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee: 33.

While the specific locations of rallies, speeches, and fundraisers vary by party, both sides are spending considerable time in the states deemed as crucial toss-ups for this election: Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina.

For students from purple states, like Pennsylvania native Ben Tamburri ’27, this onslaught of information and promotional media is “inevitable.”

Along with campaign information, swing state voters receive constant messages about the importance of their vote. Monsplaisir reflected, “I feel like back home it’s more like: ‘You need to vote, you need to vote, you need to vote.’” Guggilla agreed, “I always felt like my vote really mattered,” but added that, on campus, other students have expressed the perspective that their votes don’t matter at all. “[It’s] really crazy to see that difference in how impactful people think their voice is,” Guggilla added.

Multiple students from swing states noted the difference between the political discourse they witnessed at home and the conversations they have at Amherst.

Gabrielle Price ’28, a student from Georgia, described the discussion of politics in her home state  as a “kind of like a way of life down there. You’re either really, really conservative or really, really liberal. No in between.” While students in swing states are used to seeing both sides of the political spectrum, Massachusetts is notorious for its position as a deep blue state, something that required adjustment for some Amherst students.

Monsplaisir said that while there are conservative voices on campus, “the vast majority of people agree on the same things.”

Price shared that where she’s from in Georgia, the makeup of her town “is not more swing state vibe than it is like, just straight conservative vibe.” Because of this, Price was similarly shocked by the political conversations she heard on campus: “I was really surprised watching the debate here [because students were] actually just watching the debate,” instead of poking fun at the candidates, in particular Harris.

“There are teachers at my [high school] that are more conservative,” Guggilla said. “Here I feel like I haven’t met any conservative people and all the professors are super liberal.”

This impression of general campus-wide agreement on politics was echoed by Tamburri: “There’s a lot more alignment with Democratic issues ... we’re living in a space that is so homogenized in terms of how people see political issues.”

To some students, the diversity of opinions in their home states is preferable to the uniform perspective on politics in Massachusetts. Coming from states that are deeply entrenched in divided politics has influenced how many students have learned to discuss politicized issues, and move beyond a surface-level or purely theoretical understanding.

As Monsplaisir describes it, “The discourse here feels very intellectualized, removed, and academic. Whereas the discourse at home feels more real.” In swing states, many issues are deeply personal to those involved, motivating residents to form their own opinions based on what they see in their day-to-day lives. Tamburri reflected that growing up in Pennsylvania “encouraged [him] to be more aware of [his] own personal stance on certain issues.”

Tamburri went on to reflect that in Massachusetts there is “not necessarily less talk, but less debate. I think people kind of assume a general agreement with the people around them and because of that there's a lot of talk about what is going to happen but I think maybe that doesn’t encourage people to get as involved.”

Monsplaisir also differentiated between the progressive politics she sees at home in Michigan and what she has witnessed at Amherst, “It’s a different type of liberal [here]. I feel like Massachusetts is very white performative liberalism.” To her, being a Democrat in Massachusetts doesn’t always mean taking action, and “really ignores to an extent, or looks down on, minority groups while pretending to be liberal.”

Tamburri shared that at home he has to “be more cognizant of people who have different perceptions of the world there than [he does] here.”