A week before the midterm elections, Dominique Del Mauro sat in her living room on a typical Tuesday night, while fixated on her phone attempting to break high score in Candy Crush.
She looked up at the TV, that she was using as background noise, saw it was more election coverage and immediately shut it off.
The midterm elections were on Tuesday, Nov. 6 and some college students voted while others, like Del Mauro, did not.
Del Mauro, a finance major at the University of Maryland from Fairfield, New Jersey, said she is a registered Independent.
However, she said that she did vote in the 2016 presidential election — in hope that President Donald Trump wouldn’t take office.
“Honestly, ever since he won, I’ve just been sick of politics and lost touch with it,” she said. “I just can’t wait for all of the coverage and hype to end next week.”
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Sophia Blake, a junior communication major from Montville, New Jersey, is a registered Independent as well. The UMD student said she sent an absentee ballot to her home state.
Blake explained she decided to vote for Democratic candidates, Bob Menendez for senator and Mikie Sherrill for congresswoman.
“In light of what’s going on in political discourse lately, I feel very strongly about the Democratic side of things,” she said. “I like Mikie Sherrill because I agree with a lot of her policies, especially her staunch support of women’s rights. I don’t feel as strongly about Menendez but I voted for him anyways to keep my vote Democrat across the board.”
Furthermore, she expressed great excitement that Sherill was victorious in taking over a seat in Congress that has been previously held by Republicans for over 20 years.
“My home state is making history,” she said. “It’s really amazing.”
Godefroy Vincent, a mechanical engineering major at McGill University from Stamford, Connecticut, also casted an absentee ballot. He voted for a Republican candidate for governor, Bob Stefanowski.
“I didn’t vote for him as much as I voted against Ned Lamont, the Democrat nominee,” he said, explaining that he does not agree with Lamont’s stance on protecting the Affordable Care Act and increasing gun regulation.
Ultimately, Lamont won the race for governor.
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Patrick Murtagh, a sophomore finance and accounting major at Indiana University from Garden City, New York, said the midterm election was his first opportunity to vote, but he chose not to.
“I’m not that politically informed so I didn’t feel comfortable voting,” he said. “I am a registered Republican and am excited to vote in the next presidential election. That, I will definitely do.”
A UMD sophomore communications major from Charlotte, North Carolina, Samantha Levinson, said that she cast her vote based on the candidates’ character.
“In North Carolina, Republican candidates base a lot of their decisions and views on Christian values which is something I cannot stand behind,” she said.
Levinson said she is a registered Independent but agrees more often with the Democratic Party’s views, which ultimately influenced her vote.
Republicans won the majority of the congressional seats in North Carolina. While Levinson was disappointed, it’s what she expected.
Although these students and others around the country did not choose to vote in the midterm election, some young adults went to polls for their opinions to count.