Presidential election memories

[Del Tachi]

2000:  I was 5 and in kindergarten.  I remember having a mock election in my kindergarten class where me and my best friend voted for opposing candidates (can't remember who voted for whom though, I think I voted for Gore?  maybe?)  No actual memories of election night/the aftermath, but I do vaguely remember my mom calling Gore a "sore loser" for wanting to recount the votes.  All of my family was for Bush. 

2004:  I was 9 and in fourth grade.  My school just so happened to have fifty 4th-5th grade classes, so we each class got assigned a state to represent in the school's mock "electoral college."  My class was Wyoming with its three tiny EV's, lol.  As a class, we spent a few weeks learning about our state and the election process  before each class voted in a mock election.  We all gathered in the gym on election day to tally-up the electoral college, and it was a Kerry landslide (I went to a majority-Black public school in rural Mississippi.)  Personally, I have some faint memories of watching debate coverage with my parents.  I also remember my conservative grandmother saying one time that she thought Kerry was going to win (I don't think that was particularly close to election day).  No election night memories, but I remember waking up the day after and my mom telling me Bush had won.  All of my family was for again for Bush. 

2008:  I was 13 and in eighth grade.  This is the first year following the primaries, and I really liked Mitt Romney while the rest of my immediate family was for Huckabee.  I remember the nastiness of the Democratic primary, with Hillary Clinton's "3 AM" ad and the Jeremiah Wright controversy.  I remember my grandmother (a socially conservative, middle-aged "WWC" woman) really liking Sarah Palin.  I remember watching both the DNC and RNC on cable TV.  I remember the first debate in Oxford, MS (not too far up the road from where we lived.)  I remember the SNL snits, which were by far the best of any election I've lived-through.  At school, we organized a "mock debate" between students representing the McCain and Obama campaigns.  I had a reputation as a kid big into politics, so I was tapped to play the role of the moderator.  On election night, it was my grandmother's birthday so we took her out to dinner in another town.  I remember being kinda upset that I wouldn't be able to watch election night coverage on TV, but on the ride back we heard on the radio that Obama had been declared the winner in Ohio (which pretty much meant the race was over.)  When we got home, the West Coast polls had closed and Obama had officially been declared the winner by the news outlets.  I remember the next morning (which I remember was particuarly cold for North MS in early November), I remember my dad telling me and my siblings how historic it was that a Black man had been elected president and that we should all feel proud of our country.  My mom and grandparents were for McCain, but my dad was real coy about his vote until he ended up voting for Obama on election day.   

2012:  I was 17 and a senior in high school.  In a lot of ways, I would say I remember 2012 less saliently than 2008 (which I'll chalk up to the campaign being a real snooze fest, at least comparatively.)  In the primary, I remember my parents being for Romney and my grandparents for Santorum.  My high school had a daily, student-run newscast that was played in home room for about 10 minutes every day.  I was an opinion writer for the school newspaper and was tapped to play the role of "Mitt Romney" in a series of pre-recorded "debate segments" to air on the school newscast in the weeks leading up to the election.  Obama won our school's mock election easily (which I don't attribute to my performance as a candidate!)  On election night, our U.S. government teacher hosted an "election night party" at the school that kids could come to for extra credit.  We watched the returns for awhile, but eventually switched over to YouTube to watch SNL's election skits.  I was on my laptop refreshing the NYT elections page to follow the results though (my true Atlasian had come out this election cycle, I suppose!)  All of my family voted for Romney.     

2016:  I was 21 and a senior in college.  During the primary, I was interning in a GOP senate office in Washington, D.C. and I remember how much all the staffers hated Donald Trump (though several ended up working in his White House, lol.)  My parents and siblings were "Never Trumpers" who went through a Bush/Rubio/Kasich evolution during the GOP primary, but I think my grandparents came around to Trump before the primary had wrapped-up.  For the fall campaign, we all settled into being "Republicans for Clinton."  I was the president of a nonpartisan political honor society at my university, so my circle of friends in college was pretty politically-interested (lots of College Democrats and College Republicans.)  The honor society held multiple on-campus voter registration drives and organized an on-campus debate between students representing Trump and Clinton (which over 1,000 people attended.)  I was well-known as the big "Clinton Republican" on-campus at that time, so I had the unusual honor of playing opposition in debate prep for both debate teams.  On election night, some friends and I got together at a bar to watch the initial returns.  Once it become clear that things were a lot closer than we had initially suspected, the Democrats in the group started getting upset and wanting to leave and go home.  I ended up going over to the my parents' house (they live in the same town where I went to college) around the time Ohio was called for Trump.  I remember a good friend of mine who went to college out-of-state calling me that night to ask me what was going on and if Trump was actually going to win, to which I remember telling her that he probably would.  We went to bed a little bit after Trump gave his victory speech.  I stayed home from class the next day to watch Hillary Clinton's concession speech, which I still think was one of the best political speeches I've heard.  This was the first election in which I voted (for Clinton), and all of my immediate family did as well.  My grandparents were for Trump though.             

2020:  I'm 25 with a full-time government job in Jackson, MS.  Since the circle of people I see everyday is now much less political than it was in 2016, I have probably followed this election less than I would have in college.  I'm voting for Trump.  On election night, I'm having some people over to my apartment for drinks/snacks and planning on taking off from work the next day.  We'll see how it goes!