As the sun set on Georgia Southern’s campus the evening of election night, the halls of Sanford filled with students, faculty, and visitors from around the Statesboro community waiting in anticipation to find out who the next president of the United States will be.

 

Chase Davis, president of the college republicans, had his eyes glued to the monitor as the results for each state were being called. Although he is the president of the young republicans, Davis swayed away from voting for the republican nominee, Donald Trump, and instead voted for the republican candidate Evan McMullin. Davis considers himself to be a “conservatarian” because he agrees with libertarian and republican ideals and he believes McMullin best represents the ideals of republican millennials, like himself.

 

“As a country we need to stop worrying about trying to be right, and worry about coming together on issues and have sympathy for one another. We actually need to listen to each other so that we can solve these problems rather than continue to have them and people end up with egg on their faces on social media”, Davis explained.

 

The most important issue in this election, according to Davis, is each candidate's economic plan. No matter who the next president may be, he wants to ensure that he is able to get a job that can support a family as he follows his career goals.

 

At first, David predicted Hillary Clinton would pull 70 to 80 percent of the votes across the nation because of the changing demographics and Georgia would keep their stronghold republican values at least until 2024 and go red, but as the night went on his views shifted. Georgia did go republican as he projected but Trump pulled more electoral college votes as the night went on than he expected.

 

Joe Byrd, PR major and former vice chairmen and treasurer of the college republicans, oversaw the southern region of Georgia throughout the campaign. He voted for Johnson because his views did not line up with either candidate. He believes Trump did not unify the republican party as he should have and if he gets elected into office he will have to rely on congress more than he should which is something he will not be willing to do and because of this, Byrd hopes that Clinton will take the presidency.

 

Byrd said, “I believe for the next few elections we are a strong hold republican state but as millennials they tend to be more liberal, not economically but socially and unless the republican party changes with them they will begin to lose states like georgia.”