WUWM has been holding roundtable conversations with local voters since the spring. Through our election survey, we learned that Wisconsinites want to hear from people with different political views. These roundtables are one way we're hoping to help people better understand each other.
Young voters could be key in deciding November’s presidential election. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Gen Z and Millennial voters make up nearly half of the electorate. Over 8 million Gen Zers will be eligible to vote for the first time this year.
WUWM brought together a group of young Milwaukee area voters for a roundtable conversation on Oct. 14 to talk about what's driving their voting decisions this election year.
The roundtable was moderated by WUWM's Xcaret Nuñez and Nadya Kelly. Here are some of the takeaways we heard from the voters.
These are the individuals' personal opinions. Participants' answers may be edited for clarity and length.
Sania Syed
Lives in: Milwaukee
Age: 22
"I'm definitely feeling disheartened. I will not be voting for Donald Trump — that I can say confidently. However, what's been on my mind lately is everything that's going on in the Middle East and the suffering of Palestinians. And it's very difficult to put that out of mind and vote for Kamala Harris.
"I, as an American, want to cast a vote for somebody that I feel like inspires me ... but I feel like it's just picking the lesser of two evils at this point, and I don't think we should be put in that position.
"As far as the genocide in Palestine, both parties have not done much to interfere or hear out the cries of Americans and people around the world who have begged for this to end.
"If I had to vote right now, I would cast a vote for Kamala Harris, but that is only because I have not heard a compelling case for a third party."
Will Caldwell
Lives in: Milwaukee
Age: 21
"I support Donald Trump for presidency. The reasons why I support him, primarily, I think that he's a candidate that's going to reduce illegal immigration significantly. Immigration is the most important issue to me, as a young voter. He's someone that's going to induce a lot of economic prosperity with deregulation.
"As a young person that's about to graduate college, I look at the almost inability to buy a home because mortgage rates are so high. As someone who wants to have a family and own a home at some point, I look at that and think, where's the ability for me to do that? I think Trump has proposed economic plans to solve that in the future.
"I feel like there's a lot of sentiment from older generations that young people don't care about anything, we're lazy, we don't have any substance to us. And you know, we actually are getting politically involved and we're doing things to progress the future of America and to make it great again."
Dez Woods
Lives in: Milwaukee
Age: 27
"I'm a bit nervous for the turnout in the November election. I'm in favor of Kamala Harris, she appeals more to me. I would love to see a woman become president.
"I'm not really sure when they get into the office, whoever wins, at the end of the day, will they do what they said they're supposed to do? There's never really been a candidate that when they got into office they actually did everything they said they was gonna do, and that's important to me because we give our vote to that person, we trust in that person. So I'm kind of undecided.
"For me, education is the most important [issue.] I just feel like if Kamala could focus on education a little bit more than anybody has, a lot of our youth could thrive more.
"I have a son now, so I'm very fearful of how his future might be with the education system. Education really impacts us all."
Victor Chavez
Lives in: New Berlin
Age: 22
"I'm definitely feeling nervous for this election. When it comes to who I'm going to be voting for, I hesitantly support Kamala Harris. I'm going to be voting for her for the same reason I voted for Biden: it's because I oppose Trump and his policies, specifically on immigration.
"I'm a child a immigrants. Both my parents, fortunately, were able to come here legally. My dad on a student visa and then applying for citizenship and my mom as a refugee from civil war. A lot of times these people who are deemed as 'illegal' immigrants, they just overstayed their visas. How I believe it should be dealt with is providing a path of citizenship for these immigrants.
"Kamala, she did some decent things as VP under Biden, but I'm not that excited for her. To be honest, I'm more excited for her VP, Tim Walz. I feel like he would support more progressive policies."
Audrey Nowakoski, Maayan Silver, Erin Bagatta, Graham Thomas, Ann-Elise Henzl, and Jason Rieve contributed to the planning and production of the voter roundtable.
