On November 5, citizens across the U.S. voted in the presidential election, but it was not without controversy. Some may wonder if Generation Z, and particularly high-school aged students, are tuned in to politics in this country.
With the internet being a main part of students’ lives, they see many opinions being shared by people near or far. Many people can get wrapped up in the views and controversies that do not affect them, while some may not realize that some of the controversial issues do affect them.
With an estimated 8% drop in youth voting since the 2020 election, it is important to consider opinions of first-time and future voters who may be the deciding factor in who wins the next election.
Typically, the opinions that one forms toward society and government come from a place of wanting to help or improve the place in which they live. When someone sees something that they deem a problem, they want change.
The students of Linganore High School (LHS) shared their own personal views, beginning with their views.
“I think that the Trump campaign ran a better campaign than the Harris campaign,” said LHS senior Graham Smarick “The issues of the economy and immigration resonated better with voters than preservation of democracy and abortion.” Eli Shol, junior at Linganore, disagreed with this sentiment, believing that Donald Trump’s platform would not benefit the economy.
“I feel like just a lot of Trump’s policies just don’t align with a lot of fellow Americans’ goals,” Shol said.“I can only think of one off the top of my head where he was putting tariffs on a lot of [goods] … coming in from China. And that … is really harmful for like the whole economy because the people, like the people, the regular people, not the 1%, … are going to have … to pay for that …We have to be really rich to benefit from a lot of the things Trump wants.”
Other LHS students commented on how they believe a Trump presidency will benefit the economy.
“Trump 2025 [would have my support], and I’m glad that I’ll be able to afford a house, you know,” said sophomore Joey Todd.
Wyatt Tressler agreed, “I love that Trump supports cryptocurrency.”

“I’m kind of disappointed because his [Trump’s] Project 2025 and the tariffs… don’t make a lot of sense for a common person, so I don’t understand why people really vote for that,” said senior Nicholas Sewell. “The majority of y’all that voted for Trump are not really wealthy or going to bene
fit from it. It’s mostly going to hurt you. It’s basically going to raise all the prices. That’s basically what a tariff does. It makes things more pricey.”
The opinions of other LHS students fall somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum.
“They were both not very great. They were both bad choices.” Said Nicholas Amaya, sophomore.
“Hey man, I think it is how it is, man. Like, you can do nothing about it. You can’t take the past man, you just gotta look in the future man.” Said Luke Gaughan.
“I think both sides are a little crazy in the presidential election,” said Ava Seraton.
“Kamala Harris was the downfall of the Democratic Party during the 2024 election,” said freshman Brayden Bear. She is “not only … an unpopular candidate, endorsed solely by only the president and very few senators from the Democratic Party, but she is just solely a bad candidate because she is a woman, and there have been no prior women to ever win an election. And I firmly believe that had the Democratic Party chosen a male candidate who is anyone else, quite frankly, that they would have won the 2024 election.”
“I don’t have an opinion. I don’t really know that much,” said sophomore Trinity Jurao.
“I think that it’s a very confusing process, to say the least,” Said Rayyan Siddiqui. “It’s very hard to choose when there’s last-minute drama and everything with that. And changing candidates and stuff like that, it’s hard to keep up with compared to state elections.”
LHS students also shared strong opinions on the hot button topic of immigration..
“I feel like like… Man, I’m a little disappointed,” Shol said. … Because… I mean like, my family bro, we all immigrants. Man, my mama black. Yeah, I’m a little scared. What’s gonna happen? My family, my granny, she tried to apply for citizenship last time. She couldn’t because they had her do a lot of tests. And I know that’s gonna be a lot more rigorous since Trump’s in office. And I’m a little scared about that because I kind of want to see my granny. And I know she’s gonna want to see my grandkids. And to have the resources to even go to America, you’d be lucky to have that … So like, you really, we really need to like step up our game. We need to put up some better numbers for better policies. We gotta, We gotta.”
“I heard about this project called Project 2025 …[and] I think there’s a lot of policies on there that will take a lot of funding off of federal agencies such as the FBI,” Thomas Bastidas said. “as well as put more stricter laws on immigrants, and I just feel like it’s tough for those who want to come into the country.”
“My family, my cousin’s parents are immigrants,” Sewell said. “His girlfriend’s an immigrant. A lot of my family are friends with immigrants. And even at this table, a lot of their families are immigrants. So I don’t understand the deportation laws or what Trump wants to endorse, or what he wants to put in place… Trump was getting interviewed about what he’s going to do with immigration policies. He’s going to basically get rid of all illegal immigrants. And if their children is a citizen or was born in this country, he doesn’t want to split the family’s part. So he’s going to get rid of them too. And I just think that’s out of whack. I already voted. And I will vote for the future. Hopefully, there is one.”
Some students simply shared their support of the outcome of the presidential election.
“We took America back, baby!” Logan Wall said.
“Trump 2025.” Said Westlee Petrie.
The variation in the opinions shared represents Linganore’s diverse set of values and ideals for society and government. Hopefully, a closer look at some of the youth opinions will open up our environment to better discussions on government and society.