ELECTIONS WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 2016 | THE HARKER UPPER SCHOOL STUDENT NEWSPAPER, VOL. 18, NO. 3
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Pulse of the People: Election Memories
NICOLE CHEN
ALEX WANG
aquila features editor
Pulse of the people is part three of a seven-part repeater on social justice or other issues currently relevant to the Harker community. This issue, reporters asked students what they thought the most memorable image or speech this election season was.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
“I think [Clinton’s concession] was the best speech she has ever given, and it was by far the most power and passionate speech of the entire election. She was still able to thank everyone while treating Donald Trump as someone who did win the election but not someone who stands for her beliefs. She still emphasized the idea that we must continue fighting for what we believe is right .” “[I’ll remember] the entire nation screaming yelling, the sight of the Canadian immigration site crashing and everyone trying to move out of the United States.”
ROSE GUAN
NICOLE CHEN
EMILY CHEN JUNIOR
nicole chen
LIZHI “NEMO” YANG SOPHOMORE
“When the Javits Center had a glass ceiling and it was all happy and crowded inside, and then as the day went on more and more people started leaving, it seemed like a very apt metaphor for everything.”
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
SAHANA SRINIVSASAN
Students reflect on memorable moments of the election
NIKHIL MANGLIK SENIOR
“I’ll remember the first map that shows up when you Google search the word ‘polls’ because that’s what I was refreshing off of throughout the night and that’s definitely the image I’ll remember, when I realized that Pennsylvania was turning red.” KELSEY WU SOPHOMORE
ELECTION NIGHT (TOP) Hillary Clinton speaks at the Democratic National Convention. (SECOND) The Canadian immigration website, cic.gc.ca, crashed on election night. (THIRD) The states on this map are colored to represent the winning candidate. (BOTTOM) An election night party for Clinton took place at the Javits Center.
Choosing neither of the above adrian chu
opinion editor
In the 1968 election, George C. Wallace, an American Independent, won five Southern states with his platform of racial segregation. No third-party candidate since has won a state in the presidential election. The two-party system defines the U.S.’s modern democratic fabric. “Third parties have been around for a hundred, two hundred years; very rarely do they get anywhere,” Gary Jacobson, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at UC San Diego, said. “The last time a third party became a second party was in the 1850s, when the Republicans replaced the Whigs. Donald Trump has shown why, and that is if you want to mount an insurgency, it’s easier to take over an existing party than it is to start one on your own.” Third parties gain support by advocating for a platform combining different Democratic and Republican viewpoints or by focusing on issues that the two main parties often neglect. “With Hillary, so many people feel like they know her and if they don’t like her, they already know that, they feel strongly about that,” Surya Yalamanchili, former contestant on The Apprentice and 2010 congressional
candidate, said. “With Trump, it feels like every week, there’s another story or he’s saying something that gives a lot of people more ammunition to dislike him, and as a result of that third party candidates like Jill Stein are getting picked up [and] they’re getting a lot of support.”
“If you want to mount an insurgency, it’s easier to take over an existing party than it is to start one on your own.” GARY JACOBSON PROFESSOR EMIRITIUS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT THE UNIVESRITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO Gary Johnson, nominee of the Libertarian Party, and Jill Stein, nominee of the Green Party, both competed in the 2012 presidential election. With less than 1.5 percent of the popular vote combined, their influence on the election result was negligible, but due to the increasing disapproval of the two main parties’ presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,
more people seriously considered third parties at the polls. In the 2016 election, Johns garnered 3% of the popular vote, or over four million votes, and Stein 1%, more than a million votes. In the contentious state of Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes, Johnson earned 2% of the popular vote and Stein 0.9%, according to the Associated Press. Trump won Pennsylvania by a narrow margin of approximately 70 thousand votes, a smaller share of votes than the third party candidates earned. Similarly, in Florida, which was also a closely-fought swing state, Johnson won 2% of the popular vote and Stein 0.7%, according to the Associated Press. The state’s 28 electoral votes went to Trump, who won 49% of the vote compared to Clinton’s 48%. Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, advocates for the legalization of marijuana and is fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Peaking at a popularity of 9.8 percent in June, he lost support while gaining media coverage after asking “What is Aleppo?” in an MSNBC interview. Stein advocates for the elimination of pesticides and genetically modified organisms in agriculture and shares many of the liberal views of the Democratic Party.
KAITLIN HSU
Millions of voters turn to third-party candidates in heated election