First-time voters express relief, hesitation at Harris candidacy

New Mexican young voters share hopes and fears for new administration

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House today, young voters are grappling with their hopes and fears for the incoming administration. Following President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election, the Albuquerque Journal interviewed six first-time voters about their thoughts. Now, with the election behind them, we spoke with them to hear how they felt about the results and their expectations for the new administration.

For young first-time voters who were expecting to pick between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, President Biden’s decision to step down from the race is not what they were expecting. In his announcement on July 21,the 81-year-old Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, leaving some young voters with a sense of relief that there will be a younger candidate in the race.

Harris, 59, has since received endorsements from enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic nominee. The nomination will be made official as delegates hold a roll call ahead of their convention in Chicago.

The Journal interviewed six people who plan to vote for the first time this year in New Mexico. Our interviews included one independent, three Democrats, one Republican, and one voter who is not currently registered but will be by election day.

Isabella Lobaina, 18 and an independent, said, “I’m honestly so overjoyed that Biden stepped down.”

She’s also happy with his endorsement of Harris.

“I’m so excited that she’s running now. I’ve looked up to her since I was 14 years old, when she was running with Biden,” she said.

Lobaina said that before Biden dropped out, she would have given her vote to Nikki Haley if she had become the Republican nominee.

“I was so set on Nikki Haley. She would’ve been the first woman president. I think a younger person, no matter their views, would be able to one communicate a little better,” she said.

When Harris officially becomes the Democratic nominee, Lobaina speculated she may finally get that wish for a female president.

“It’s so admirable for me to see how a strong, truly independent woman can make her way to the White House while still having her beliefs and holding her ground the entire time,” she said.

With her enthusiasm at the prospect of voting for Harris in the general election, she’s also relieved to not be voting for Biden.

“I didn’t want to vote for someone I couldn’t understand,” she said of his debate performance in June against Trump.

Alexis Adams, a registered Democrat and sophomore at the University of New Mexico, said, “I feel like Harris will do better than Biden.”

According to a Five Thirty Eight analysis of polling done before Biden’s announcement, the Vice President performed the same as Biden or slightly better across all voters.

Harris also raised $200 million in the first week of her campaign, a number that has grown dramatically since. The Harris campaign also reported that for 60% of their grassroots donors, it was their first donation of the 2024 cycle.

Along with President Biden, Harris has also received endorsements from former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Braeden Prunier is a registered Republican who has problems with Trump, but was planning to vote for him over Biden. He said Biden’s announcement hasn’t changed his mind.

“If the Democratic party had a younger candidate who had moderate policies, I might honestly have elected to vote for them instead of Trump,” said Prunier. He said that Harris, however, is not that moderate candidate.

“I am very disappointed that his nomination was Kamala. I think I like Kamala Harris less than I like President Biden,” he said. “Despite my complete disagreement with Obama, I think he was a genuinely good guy. I don’t feel the same about Kamala. I mean, she’s the reason so many African Americans are in prison for small marijuana possession charges.”

Rakkin Faruk, a registered Democrat and recent graduate of the University of New Mexico, also has concerns about the vice president’s record as a prosecutor, a record that Harris’s opponents pointed out in debates leading up to the 2020 Democratic primary season, when Harris was a presidential candidate.

Harris “has many things that she must reflect on and make amends toward,” said Faruk. “I remember when Vice President Kamala Harris was first coming into her term, there was a lot of talk about how she has put thousands into (prison) for marijuana possession.

“However, I do think that she is more fit to run in this position,” she added.

Faruk and Prunier said they formed their opinions about Harris’s prosecutorial record during the 2020 Democratic primary debates. Faruk says while she didn’t watch, she saw clips on social media of then-candidate Tulsi Gabbard saying that Harris had imprisoned over a thousand people for marijuana charges.

In her time as District Attorney of San Francisco, Harris oversaw over 1,900 marijuana convictions. Only 45 of them were sentenced to state prison, according to a San Jose Mercury News investigation.

Faruk said she is currently an uncommitted voter and pushed for an uncommitted campaign in New Mexico during the primary because of her views on the Israel-Hamas war. She says that she has disagreed with Biden’s support of Israel.

“That is the forefront issue that everybody is looking at, especially that the youth are looking at,” said Faruk, “and I think Harris is more aware of the impact of the youth vote currently.”

“With Biden, if we had someone leading our country who is from, you know, almost a century ago, we should not have been surprised when he was voting on policy decisions as if they were from a century ago,” she added.

However, she said, “My vote for a third-party candidate will probably not change.”

She said while she had decided she won’t be voting for Biden because of how she believes he’s handled the Israel-Hamas war, she won’t consider Harris either “unless within the next couple months we see a stark difference in how Kamala Harris intends to create reforms, in terms of her imprisonment works.”

Faruk added, “It’s really disappointing that Biden dropped out of the race so late in it.”

Prunier, who is an incoming freshman at the University of Chicago, said he doesn’t think Biden’s decision to drop out was a selfless one.

“I think a lot of people are giving him too much credit for dropping out. They’re saying that he is a patriot or selfless, but in reality it’s because he faced mounting pressure from people across the country to (drop out),” he said.

He also thinks that by endorsing Harris, Biden “just handed Republicans the election.”

Faruk isn’t the only first-time voter who has decided on or is considering a third-party vote. Sienna Nordquist, who is not old enough to register but will be for election day, said, “I feel like my views align more with independent candidates, but quite frankly, unfortunately it doesn’t do much to vote for them, so I’m not sure how worth it is to do that. If I could vote for an independent candidate and know that it could do something, I would.”

Katherine Patton, an independent, said, “If you vote for (an independent), it almost feels like a waste of a vote, and I guess I’d rather vote for the lesser of two evils.”

Nordquist had concerns about Biden after his debate performance, saying “It’s not a good look on a world stage when our leader looks like that.”

Patton said, “It kinda feels exciting, just because it’s like you finally get a voice in what politics are happening,” she said, “and also I guess I’m just a little bit confused about this election.”

Lobaina added, “I’m praying Harris is the future of America, because I’m absolutely terrified if she’s not.”