Presidential election memories

[ultraviolet]

2012: I don’t really remember much about this election, I just remember liking Obama and thinking Romney was okay. Didn’t watch the election but I asked my parents who won the following morning.

2014: My 4th grade class had a mock election for governor. I voted for Rick Snyder because 1) I considered myself a Republican at the time, 2) he was the incumbent and I thought things were good and 3) I felt bad for him cause everyone hated him. Of course Schauer won in a landslide because it’s Ann Arbor (also his name was funny).

2016: I always thought Hillary was a lock for the nomination, so when I look at the primary now I’m surprised it was so close (especially Iowa). When Bernie won Michigan people talked about it a lot but I didn’t care because I knew Hillary would still win the nomination.

Over in the Republican primary, I was a big Trump fan (thought Kasich was ok too). I adored him as a businessman because he had a bunch of skyscrapers (I loved skyscrapers) including the most beautiful building in Chicago and also his cameo in Home Alone 2. I recognized that Trump wouldn’t be a good president, though, cause I remember wanting him to win the primary but then lose the election.

Anyway, in our school mock election, I made an easy vote for Hillary, and she won decisively despite a huge campaign effort from the greens. It was like Clinton 70, Stein 15, Trump 10, Johnson 5 iirc. So that and what I already knew convinced me she was a heavy favorite. Come election night, I remember being concerned with PA cause I thought it was a blue state like NY, but I went to bed thinking she’d still win. The next day I remember looking at the results trying to see how Clinton could still win (“michigan is so close, maybe they can overturn it”). I remember my teachers crying at school. Sad day.

2018: no longer thinking of myself as a Republican, I was somewhat following the election and thought Dems would take back the house. I remember watching the 538 live odds and texting my friend about it, nothing interesting really happened that night, although I was kinda shocked that Donnelly lost for some reason.

2020: My history teacher at the time was really good and liked to keep us updated on current events, so he showed us Biden’s announcement video when he put it out in April 2019. At that moment I began supporting his campaign and have been ever since. It’s been a fun ride.

[Vosem]

2004: No memory of the primaries. I was a 2nd-grader, and my class polarized on the issue of the general election on boys vs. girls (as we did on every question), with, for some reason, girls supporting Bush and boys supporting Kerry. I was very disappointed that my family supported Bush.

2008: (Atlas Forum origin story coming) Although I was 11 years old, during the primaries I became an enthusiastic supporter of John McCain's, which my family regarded with bemusement, and I registered elderly family members to vote by mail on his behalf in the primary and general. Shortly after the election I began lurking on Atlas, and I registered in late 2009.

2012: 15. By this point my views were more coherent than at 11 and were broadly similar to where they are now, though I was pretty hackish and overconfident in my opinions on topics I had little knowledge of; I was not in the habit of trying to practice epistemic humility. I voted through relatives in the primary and general election for Mitt Romney.

2016: 19. Was generally disappointed with the rise of Trump, but didn't really feel like I could support Hillary to defeat him. I voted for Kasich in the primary (mostly because I vote in Ohio, where he was the only serious choice; I was nationally for Cruz through most of the primaries after Rubio exited the race), and supported Johnson in the general.

2020: 23. Still generally see the Republican party as a better fit for my values than the Democrats, but still have quite little faith in DJT. Voted for Weld in the primary (since Biden had already won the Democratic nomination by that time), and I intend to vote Jorgensen in the general.

This voting record paints me as rather substantially more moderate than I actually am.

[GeneralMacArthur]

2016: 19. Was generally disappointed with the rise of Trump, but didn't really feel like I could support Hillary to defeat him. I voted for Kasich in the primary (mostly because I vote in Ohio, where he was the only serious choice; I was nationally for Cruz through most of the primaries after Rubio exited the race), and supported Johnson in the general.

2020: 23. Still generally see the Republican party as a better fit for my values than the Democrats, but still have quite little faith in DJT. Voted for Weld in the primary (since Biden had already won the Democratic nomination by that time), and I intend to vote Jorgensen in the general.

This voting record paints me as rather substantially more moderate than I actually am.

Not to start this conversation, but if you want the party to return to its pre-Trump state, the best thing you can do is be part of an overwhelming rebuke of Trump.  He needs to lose in a landslide for the GOP to finally be forced to purge his QAnon-type base from the party.  And that means voting for Biden.

Think about it this way -- on election night, are you going to be watching the numbers and hoping Biden beats Trump by as many votes as possible?  Or are you going to prioritize hoping for Jorgensen to get 1% or whatever her goal is?

[kcguy]

Not going to do the full list.

When I was in my early teens, I decided to color in a map as the states were called.  In retrospect, 1984 was probably the worst possible year for me to do that.

2000.  I hated Gore.  The dude couldn't even fake sincerity.  I was planning to vote Bush until the final weekend, when a staunch Bush supporter told me about all the "great" things that would happen when Bush was elected.  I voted Libertarian instead.

2004.  In the presidential debates, one of the candidates said he thought marriage should be between a man and a woman, and the other candidate was George W Bush.  I didn't even vote that election; it's the last election at any level that I missed.

---

In the 2010 midterms, I voted for 3 Republicans out of 7 partisan races.  That was the last election I voted for any Republican.

[Vosem]

2016: 19. Was generally disappointed with the rise of Trump, but didn't really feel like I could support Hillary to defeat him. I voted for Kasich in the primary (mostly because I vote in Ohio, where he was the only serious choice; I was nationally for Cruz through most of the primaries after Rubio exited the race), and supported Johnson in the general.

2020: 23. Still generally see the Republican party as a better fit for my values than the Democrats, but still have quite little faith in DJT. Voted for Weld in the primary (since Biden had already won the Democratic nomination by that time), and I intend to vote Jorgensen in the general.

This voting record paints me as rather substantially more moderate than I actually am.

Not to start this conversation, but if you want the party to return to its pre-Trump state, the best thing you can do is be part of an overwhelming rebuke of Trump.  He needs to lose in a landslide for the GOP to finally be forced to purge his QAnon-type base from the party.  And that means voting for Biden.

Think about it this way -- on election night, are you going to be watching the numbers and hoping Biden beats Trump by as many votes as possible?  Or are you going to prioritize hoping for Jorgensen to get 1% or whatever her goal is?

On Election Night, I will be looking at pretty maps while very intoxicated with an old friend from college I haven't seen in 18 months; I will prioritize reconnecting with him. (Over the course of those 18 months, he has landed his dream job, eloped with his girlfriend, and gotten a mortgage on a house, so I expect this will be very uplifting and cheerful.) I am not completely indifferent to the question of whether Biden or Trump wins, but it is not a subject I can get very passionate about, and my emotions will be about the same regardless of who wins or does not win.

I do hope Democrats do poorly enough in the Senate that they can't achieve very much, but it's hard to say exactly where the cut-off for this is. If the GOP had like 4 more Senate seats, then your argument would be much more persuasive.

[T'Chenka]

2016 - Went to see Doctor Strange in theaters with my mom, then went to her apartment to watch the election on CNN. I left to catch the late night bus home right around the time Michigan and Wisconsin started looking bad for Clinton. When I got on the bus, I recognized the bus driver and greeted him. I mentioned to him that I had just checked my phone and that Trump was highly favoured to win, over 90% chance, and he was even more blown away by that knowledge than I was.

[Crumpets]

1996 was the first election in my lifetime. I was 2. I don't have any memory of it at all, but I have vague memories from the late 90s of Clinton being President. I remember liking him and both my parents liking him.

In 2000, I was 6 (7 when it was actually called). I didn't pay any attention to the primaries and didn't know much about either candidate - I knew Bush's dad had been President and that he was from Texas. That's about it. I think I watched one of the debates and I remember liking Bush, even though my parents were both strong Gore supporters. I don't have clear memories of election night, but I very clearly remember the whole Florida recount debacle and following that back-and-forth at least as well as any 1st grader could. I also didn't know at the time that the new President wasn't immediately made President upon the election being decided, and I wasn't sure if Clinton was still running things, or if they were just not making any decisions until we knew who won the election.

In 2004, I was 10. This was the first election where I had a basic understanding of what each of the parties represented and what my own beliefs were. I didn't follow the primaries closely, but I remember liking Wesley Clark for some reason and I'm pretty sure at least my dad supported Dean. Not sure about my mom. 2004 was a pretty crazy year in my family that involved spending a lot of time in hospitals. I remember watching the conventions visiting my dad in the hospital, although they didn't really mean much to me at the time. Election night I spent at my grandma's house and I watched the returns come in on her small kitchen TV. I remember we were watching NBC because they had a map on the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink that they were coloring in as each state was called. I was definitely for Kerry at this point, having turned against the Iraq War, which, as a 9 year old, I had initially supported for some reason. I think I must have thought Kerry was favored because he had so many supporters in Washington, so I was surprised and sad when Bush became the clear favorite. I remember being told that Kerry had conceded the next day in school. That was also the day my grandpa died, so it's been an ongoing joke in our family that he decided he was no longer meant for this earth when he heard there would be 4 more years of Bush.

In 2008, I was 14. This was the first election I really got into. I was a strong Clinton supporter and strongly disliked Obama, probably to an irrational level. I thought he was an extremely entitled person who hadn't achieved anything other than giving a speech and writing some books, and the only reason he had any support was because his supporters and the media were all sexist hacks. However, I was also full late-2000s "Bush lied, people died," "send Cheney to the Hague" Green Day-listening wannabe leftist and all of this was secondary to getting the Republicans out of office. I went to a "leadership conference" in DC that April, and it was the first time I had really interacted with conservatives my own age. Some of them I really liked and got along with well and others I didn't. It was kind of eye-opening as someone with as strong and simplistic views as I had. I was really disappointed when Clinton didn't win the primary and, if I had been eligible to vote, probably would have been considering leaving my presidential vote blank, since I lived in a safe Democratic state. That changed after the DNC, which really got me back into the team spirit and genuinely rooting for Obama. The Palin nomination was a huge deal and the butt of so many jokes between me and my friends for a solid year. One of my friends got me "Going Rogue" as a gag gift for my 16th birthday. I was fairly confident Obama would win, especially after the stock market collapsed, but it ended up being a much bigger victory than I was expecting. I actually missed most of election night because I was at rowing practice and we grabbed dinner on the way home, although fortunately the restaurant had the election coverage on tv. McCain had conceded before I even got home.

In 2012, I was 18, and it was the first election when I was able to vote in. I followed the Republican primaries pretty closely and didn't have a strong "favorite" for who I wanted to win. I was planning on caucusing for Ron Paul, just because I thought an Obama-Paul election would lead to a more vibrant debate on the future on the country than yet another "normal Democrat vs. normal Republican" election, but I ended up having a scheduling conflict. I had become much more of an Obama supporter compared to 2008 and never really seriously considered voting for anyone else in the general. To date, 2012 was the election night that I felt the most nervous going into. I was predicting Obama would win, but with maybe just one or two states of wiggle room for surprise losses. My parents and I ended up going to an election night party in downtown Seattle, and I was thrilled at how well it ended up going and that I was even able to get home at a reasonable time to sleep before school the next day. Ironically, the things I feared most about a potential Romney presidency ended up coming true in a lot of cases with the Trump presidency. Maybe I was successfully fearmongered by the liberal media, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that Romney and Trump have more in common than they'd like to admit.

In 2016 I was 22. The 2016 election was obviously insane and I won't go into detail about each of the twists and turns. I volunteered for the Clinton campaign during the primaries. Unlike 2008 with Obama, I actually liked Bernie Sanders, and I could not for the life of me understand how the primary got so vitriolic. I had so many friends who were such strong Bernie supporters who absolutely would not give Clinton the time of day. In a lot of ways, I still think there is quite a lot of latent sexism within even solid Democratic voters that we don't like to admit. And I don't say that to argue that Clinton should have been free from criticism - obviously she done goofed bad. Just that it's something we're going to have to address if we ever want to have a primary between a man and a woman that doesn't devolve into mudslinging between the supporters.

I ended up being out of the country from mid-August to mid-October, and I ended up missing quite a lot of the big events of the campaign. The only things I heard about during this time as far as US politics go was that Hillary had fainted at the 9/11 memorial and the Access Hollywood tape of Trump. I was really surprised when I got back to the US what the state of discussion about the campaign had become - DNC emails? Standing Rock? Colin Kaepernick? How did we get here? I think this played a big role in my over-confidence going into election night, the other being that essentially every life-long Republican I knew was voting for Clinton. I watched the early returns from home, paced back-and-forth in my living room for hours on end, talked on the phone with my mom a lot, and eventually we ended up going to a bar together to commiserate. I went to bed before the election was called and ended up having to get up super early the next day to start work as a barista. Not exactly the least stressful day of my life.

[Buzz]

2008 (age 11): I didn't know a thing about politics.  My family wanted McCain to win, so I just went with the flow.  I remember there being some really nasty conversations at the lunch table at school about who people wanted to win.  (McCain is going to die soon, racist because you don't like Obama, Obama has no experience, ect.).  I watched the election coverage and was kinda sad when Obama won, but ultimately didn't really care because politics were not my thing.

2012 (age 15): Still not that big into politics, but paying more attention.  My entire family wanted Romney to win, and we had a sign in the yard.  Far less conversation in the school about this election vs. the prior in 2008.  Watched election coverage and was sad when things did not look good in Florida.  I didn't think Obama was that bad though, so it wasn't nearly as bad of a feeling as 2008.

2016 (age 19): Supported Donald Trump from the day he entered the race.  Started following everything VERY closely.  Watched almost all of the GOP debates, and couldn't get enough of Mr. Trump.  I hated Hillary Clinton and the thought of her taking office made me ill.  I watched all of the debates and frequently checked poll numbers everyday.  I even made an account on Atlas to join the conversation!  I was in college and was NOT a shy Trump supporter.  First time ever voting and voted for Trump, obviously.  A bunch of us got together on Election Night and that will go down as one of the best nights ever.  I did not think Trump would win, so I was ecstatic when he started to sweep the swing states.  Amazing times.

2020 (age 23): I support Donald Trump, just as much as I did in 2016.  I've gone from a vocal Trump supporter to much more "shy".  Now that I work full time and with cancel culture, I don't feel like I can go posting on social media or talking about how I support Trump anymore.  I am also much more involved this election.  Between reaching out or calling people, I have worked hard to get people to votes for four more years of Trump.  I do not think he will win, and think it is entirely because of COVID-19.  Joe Biden is way past his prime, and the thought of Kamala being president is terrifying. I now have over 1,400 post on Atlas, and try to bring fresh perspective to this place.

[OBD]

2008 (age 5): I remember the election being on TV, and seeing Obama leading the electoral vote. That's about it.

2012 (age 9): Supported Obama because his party was blue (my favorite color). We did some electoral college-related games and stuff in elementary school, which was fun - I remember playing as the Democrats against my best friend (we're both solid liberals nowadays).

2016 (age 13): First election where I had actual political beliefs, though they were still fairly nebulous (generic Oregon progressive - I'd moved left slightly before the election). My parents were also big Clinton supporters, and we all hated Trump. Election night was a painful experience - by around 5:30 PM PST, we realized that Trump might win, and over the next 3 hours reality slowly set in. A painful night, and followed by disbelief and disgust at school the next day.

2018 (age 15): First election where I had actual knowledge about how elections worked, and first election after I joined the blog. I was cheering for Democrats to take the House and Senate (I predicted 49-51 seats for the Democrats, which obviously didn't materialize) and for Knute Buehler in Oregon, though I had shifted significantly to the center since 2016. At around 5:30 PM PST, I was kind of in panic mode due to Donnelly going down hard and the results looking bad, but things slowly got better as the night went on. Sinema winning was the cherry on top - I wrote an essay in spring about it, and getting vindicated was nice.

2020 (age 17): This is my first presidential election on Atlas, and I have significantly more political knowledge than in 2018. Obviously, I'm a big Biden supporter, and have been since he declared - though as my views have shifted back to the left since February (accelerated in June), I might have supported Bernie in retrospect. That said, I'm still a Biden fan, especially compared to some of my classmates. I've volunteered with a high school group, and I've done some phonebanking and textbanking (much less recently though). I don't have a very positive outlook for Tuesday right now, but here's to hoping.