HONOLULU — Young voters could play a critical role in deciding who will be America’s next president, but as a new school year begins at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, there’s little enthusiasm in any big way ahead of Nov. 5.
Most of the students who spoke to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser at the UH Campus Center on Tuesday said they have no interest in voting and aren’t focusing on the campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump or the issues they’re highlighting.
“I’ve never really paid attention to politics,”said Maiko Santiago, an 18-year-old botany freshman from Kaneohe.
In a typical sentiment reflected by other students at UH, Santiago said, “I don’t have a lot of time to focus on those things.”
Chloe Blakeley — a 21-year-old senior majoring in sociology with a minor in political science — has registered as a Republican in her home state of Colorado and prefers Trump over Harris. Asked whether she’s excited about voting for another Trump presidency, Blakeley said, “not enthusiastically. No.” But she called Trump “the better of two evils.”
Sonnie DuVall and Lawrence Coch are both 19-year-old business sophomores and said their interest in business and Trump’s business background — along with their family’s military service — makes them want to make their first votes count for Trump.
While Alexis Garcia — an 18-year-old freshman from Whittier, Calif., studying marine biology at UH — said she’s casting a tepid vote for Harris, saying, “I just prefer her over Donald Trump.”
Compared with her uncle and aunt who live on Oahu and her grandmother from California who helped her move into the UH dorms, Garcia said, “My family has a more Democratic point of view than me.”
Even though she’s not overly enthusiastic about her choices, Garcia and other first-time voters said they are still eager to cast their first votes for a U.S. president.
“I really want to vote,” she said.
But David Gilgallon — a 19-year-old sophomore from San Francisco studying marine biology at UH — like other UH students, said he wasn’t passionate about either Trump or Harris.
“I’m undecided, definitely,” Gilgallon said. “I still need to do some more research.”
Overall, voter apathy in Hawaii remains a recurring issue.
In the Aug. 10 party primary elections, 839,618 people registered to vote. But only 32.3 percent of them — or 271,345 — actually bothered to cast ballots.
The Nov. 5 general election showdown between Trump and Harris could still see a big turnout of Hawaii voters.
In the 2020 presidential election between Trump and President Joe Biden, 69.6 percent of Hawaii’s 832,466 registered voters cast 579,784 ballots.
Just months before, in the August 2020 primary election, 795,248 people registered to vote, and 51.2 percent of them cast 407,190 ballots.
A 2023 poll by Pacific Resource Partnership — the political arm of the Hawaii Carpenters Union — found voter apathy in Hawaii was highest among 18- to 34-year-olds. And 23 percent of them were not registered to vote.
Out of those who were registered, 25 percent voted inconsistently or not at all.
On the opposite end, 97 percent of residents age 65 and older were registered, and 63 percent voted in every primary and general election.
The reliable turnout of older voters gives them outsize attention from candidates and more focus on their issues, sometimes frustrating political younger voters.
Students in UH instructor Jay Stout’s public-speaking classes are passionate about issues such as climate change, sustainability and protecting the environment that sometimes generate healthy debate in Stout’s classroom.
“We do get both sides of the political aisle from liberal perspectives and conservative perspectives,” he said.
Of the UH students who do plan to vote, several told the Star-Advertiser that they felt it was important to be counted — like first-time presidential voter Kaden Janc, a 20-year-old, junior from San Diego studying natural resource management. He registered as a Democrat and plans to vote for Harris over Trump, but with little enthusiasm.
“I’m not excited about either,” Janc said. “But she’s better.”
Politics has divided his family in Southern California — Janc called his mom “more conservative, and my dad’s more liberal.”
So they avoid talking politics within the family, and Janc did not watch either the Republican or Democratic national convention.
Asked whether he’s excited about voting for president for the first time, Janc said simply, “No.”
Maddy Handshew — an 18-year-old freshman from Seattle studying marine biology at UH — also did not watch either convention, but said, “A lot of girls my age are trying to vote.”
Some of them like Harris’ pledge to restore abortion rights across the country.
So for Handshew, “Not voting is making a choice.”
Childhood friends Ravenna Laktonen and Jazlynn Campbell knew each other as sixth graders in Virginia growing up in military families.
They took separate, long routes to UH, where they’re now both 18-year-old psychology freshmen.
Laktonen came from Anchorage, Alaska, and described her ethnicity as “Black and Alaskan Native.” Campbell arrived from Germany and described herself as “Black and Panamanian.”
Neither said Harris’ background — as a woman of Southeast Asian and African American heritage — played a significant role in their support for her.
But Harris’ pledge to ensure reproductive rights means she has their vote.
“This is a big one for women’s rights,” Laktonen said.
Asked about discussions in the UH dorms about the presidential race, Laktonen said, “I notice that most people don’t want to get into it. But somebody has to say something.”
Kai Vanderschoot — a 21-year-old senior studying philosophy and political science at UH — might go on to law school or pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy and already has voted in one presidential election, for Biden.
He describes himself as “liberal leaning” but remains uncommitted to Harris, especially after watching both political conventions, which he called “pretty ridiculous. I didn’t like how unserious they were. They were pushing nationalistic rhetoric on both sides.”
Vanderschoot called voting necessary but also unpleasant.
“The only way to make change is to be the change,” he said. “But I hate politics. It’s like watching a car crash and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
