Students express mixed reactions to presidential elections

After the re-election of President Obama on Nov. 6, many students expressed both relief and concern for the future of the nation. 

In a mock vote involving most of the senior class, students voted overwhelmingly for Obama.

Government teacher Kirk Abe said that all seniors enrolled in social studies classes, which comprises almost all of the senior class, participated in the mock elections. While 220 of the seniors voted for Obama, only 41 voted for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“Obama’s victory in the mock election mimics how younger people tend to vote Democrat,” Abe said. “However, I didn’t think it would be this big of a gap.”

Obama’s win by a landslide in the mock elections somewhat reflected the results of the actual presidential election. Though the popular vote was much closer with Obama getting 50 percent and Romney getting 48 percent, Obama won 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206.

Abe said he was surprised that Obama won all but one of the swing states in the elections because he expected the results to be much closer.

“I thought Obama was ahead, but after the first debate, that really gave Romney a surge and it was pretty strong,” Abe said. “Realistically, I thought it would have been closer than that.”

Echoing Abe’s surprise by the results, junior Grant Wang, a Romney supporter, said the outcome of the election surprised him.

“I support [Romney] so of course I expected him to win,” Wang said. “When you look at the popular vote most of the United States, well actually half of it, liked [Romney] too.” 

Despite the closeness of the popular vote, senior Fred Feyzi said he is very excited about Obama’s re-election.

“I think Obama is definitely going to tackle the fiscal cliff and the deficit problem,” Feyzi said. “He’s going to definitely look to lower the unemployment rate and really get Americans back in jobs.”

On the other hand, sophomore Alex Ferrari said she was concerned about the potential of Obama’s unfulfilled promises.

“If Obama doesn’t follow through with the changes that he’s saying this term, the stock markets are going to crash and the economy is going to decline into another depression,” Ferrari said.

Wang also expressed concern for the future of the nation’s foreign policy and the ramifications of Obama’s health care plan.

“My main worries are about the foreign policies Obama has,” Wang said. “He’s not very strict in dealing with foreign conflicts, which shows America is becoming weak.”

Despite such varying opinions, students said that Obama’s re-election would not have too much of an effect on Saratoga. However, Feyzi said that Obama’s education policies could affect Saratoga’s college-bound seniors.

“He won’t affect [Saratoga] too much because [it] is a pretty wealthy school,” Feyzi said. “But for the most part, [Obama] will definitely hand out more Pell Grants and lower the cost of education and college. So [for] Saratoga students who will be graduating, [Obama] will definitely decrease their college funds.”

Although students have different opinions on the issues of the day, Abe said he appreciates that his students express interest in politics.

“There are quite a few [students] who are into it and are curious as to how the propositions [turned out], especially in the presidential elections,” Abe said. “There are a lot of important issues right now, especially the economy, so I think it's on the minds of a lot of Americans, including our students.”