The 2020 presidential election season is currently in full swing with both parties having hosted national conventions within the past few weeks. Republican incumbent President Donald Trump will run against the newly selected Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden. Despite the election coming up, no clear frontrunner has emerged and both candidates have drawn sharp contrast on policy issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis could be a really close election,\u201d Dr. Steven Breezeel, professor and chair of the History and Political Science Department, said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what this election is going to be like. There are a lot of things going on that have people interested that might not have always been interested \u2026 It\u2019s also notoriously hard to predict a November election in August.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many Harding University students are feeling the weight of this election due to the COVID-19 pandemic and what it could mean for on-campus life, as well as the future of the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that it is vital that every student that can vote in the upcoming 2020 election does so,\u201d senior Mason Burcham said. \u201cThe 2020 presidential election is the first time for many college students to be able to have a voice in national politics and have their voices heard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the pandemic has been at the forefront of political discussion, other important issues have also become heavily discussed, both among candidates and Harding students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cStudent debt will \u2026 be an issue on every student\u2019s mind during this next election and how the next president will deal with it,\u201d Burcham said. \u201cI also think this generation of students is very passionate about issues that not only affect today, but future generations \u2014 such as climate change and how people of color are viewed and treated in our society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though college students often have a lot at stake in presidential elections, they are cited as one of the lowest voting turnout demographics in our country. Many students, like senior Ben Gazaway, feel like their voices will not be heard among the millions of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel restricted by the two-party system that doesn\u2019t value my vote,\u201d Gazaway said. \u201cI would rather vote for a third-party candidate like Vermin Supreme or Kanye West because I don\u2019t feel comfortable voting for either major party representative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite this sentiment, assistant professor of political science Lori Klein is still encouraging students to go out and vote to make their voices heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYour vote does matter,\u201d Klein said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much on the ballot \u2014 more than just the one race we\u2019re seeing in the media \u2014 and those races have more opportunity to impact your daily life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2020 presidential election will be the 59th<\/sup> in the country\u2019s history. It will take place Nov. 3, 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2020 presidential election season is currently in full swing with both parties having hosted national conventions within the past few weeks. Republican incumbent President Donald Trump will run against…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":14657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14874,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14873\/revisions\/14874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}