Voter Sentiment in Staten Island on Election Day
Trump or Hillary? It’s not as simple as that. Speaking to Staten Islanders around town on election day sheds light on the choices voters are making and the corresponding feelings they have while making them.
Jasmine, an employee at the local Hard Hat Café, said those she knows have all voted for Clinton. She also expressed her belief that Trump ran to get Hillary in office. Not having voted herself, she plans to do so after work. Her reason for voting for Clinton is simply because she’s a woman. Yet Jasmine expressed that this election “doesn’t make much of a change in my life.” As a 36-year-old single mom of three, those in a lower middle class position are being overlooked, she said.
Vanity Lapree, a poet and writer, felt empowered by voting. Referencing civil rights and the progress her ancestors and women have made, she voted as someone who doesn’t take for granted how far America has come. “Why not stand for something while we’re living and breathing?”
William Harris, a 60-year-old seasonal City Park Worker and a Hillary voter, criticized the “suspense” Trump tends to leave people feeling. “Trump has good ideas but he doesn’t know where to start to enact them.” He also voiced his concern over the judges to be elected by whichever candidate is chosen for president. Hillary would elect liberal ones who he believes would lean towards equality while Trump would elect someone who would take away the right for abortion, for instance.
Jay Diaz, an employee at the Department of Sanitation who had the day off, seemed halfhearted. “It’s a joke,” he said of the election. Comparing Trump to Arnold Schwarzenegger, he continued to say that “we’re the laughing stock of many other nations.” Unexcited about having to go to Brooklyn later in the day to vote, he shared that he would likely be voting for Hillary, who his mother backs because of what she stands for. “I hope my mom’s right.”
