On the day of the 2024 United States presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the Yale student body received an email from an organization called Yalies4Trump. The email invited “all election deniers, anti-vaxxers, and victims of Jewish Space Lasers” to a watch party in the (non-existent) Phelps Hall 601, encouraging students in bolded lettering to take “one shot for every non-lie that comes out of his mouth.” The email concluded, “If you’ve read this far, you’ll be glad to know this is a parody.”
While the Yalies4Trump event was fake, several student organizations hosted real watch parties on September 10th. That night, over 400 Yalies gathered at the watch party hosted by YaleVotes, a student-led organization that promotes voter turnout. More than 300 attended the Yalies4Harris watch party, a branch of Yale College Democrats (YaleDems). Approximately 20 went to the newly revived Yale College Republicans watch party.
As the 2024 Presidential election looms over the nation, several student organizations have worked to bolster engagement—especially since most Yale students will be voting in a presidential election for the first time. However, the current atmosphere of political engagement raises questions about whether Yale students and faculty perpetuate liberal ideology regarding the election, specifically those in favor of the Harris-Walz ticket, and whether there is space for those supporting Trump-Vance.
This rhetoric regarding predominant leftism at Ivy League institutions, and liberal arts schools more generally, is not limited to the upcoming election. Lauren Noble ’11, Founder and Executive Director of the Buckley Institute, a student organization dedicated to fostering intellectual diversity and freedom of speech at Yale, wrote an op-ed in 2023 in RealClear Education titled “Yale’s Ideological Echo Chamber.” She quoted former Yale College Dean Donald Kagan who described a Yale education as “a mutual massage between liberal students and professors.”
She also stressed that “faculty imbalance at Yale is as bad as ever,” since “83% of Yale faculty are Democrats” and only “3.5% registered as or donated to Republicans.”
Five years earlier, Yale Daily News contributor Lily Rogers authored a satirical piece, “Yale Needs to Stop Accepting Republican Students,” writing “I came to Yale to be in a liberal echo chamber, surrounded by opinions exactly like my own. I thought Yale was supposed to be a bubble.” While the article was written facetiously, it gave voice to perceptions about the political dominance of liberalism in Yale’s campus culture.
According to a 2023 survey by Buckley, approximately 80% of Yale students described Yale’s overall political and philosophical environment as somewhat or very liberal. Half of students believe Yale is unwelcoming to students with unpopular political opinions on campus. The same amount is not confident whether Yale would stand by them if they shared a perspective others deemed offensive.
Because of the strong presence of Democratic organizations on campus, efforts in support of Harris are seemingly ubiquitous. Throughout the fall term, political organizations YaleDems and Yalies4Harris have hosted phone banking campaigns, canvassing trips to swing states, and watch parties. Through their large online presence, their support for the Harris vote is prominent across spaces on campus.
Pia Baldwin Edwards ’25, one of the founders of Yalies4Harris, noted the power of creating a community on campus in support of Harris. “[The watch party] was kind of beautiful; the energy there was just incredible. It felt like you were watching the debate with people who were validating things that you feel and things that you think are ridiculous,” she said. She noted that she knew at least five people were watching the debate who were still undecided. However, she still noted that the environment was progressive, and intended to be a space for those who support Harris: “It’s not a welcoming environment if you show up and everyone’s laughing at Trump.”
At the debate hosted by YaleVotes, a nonpartisan organization on campus promoting civic engagement, the crowd still leaned overwhelmingly liberal. “It was kind of awkward because we’re nonpartisan, but the crowd is obviously super not. So overwhelmingly, people were cheering when Harris dropped some attack line on Trump,” said Alex Moore ’26, “There were people in the crowd who cheered when Trump walked out…The energy in the room was just so, so Democrat, and I think [Trump supporters] kind of got pushed into silence, which is too bad, but unavoidable.”
The newly reestablished Yale College Republicans serve as the conservative counterpart to Yale Dems, albeit a much smaller one.
Support for Trump has not only been a contentious issue between liberals and conservatives but within Republicans at Yale. During the 2016 election cycle, the board of Yale College Republicans endorsed then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. This decision created a schism between members. Some remained with Yale College Republicans, which was pro-Trump, while others founded and joined the Yale New Republicans. However, both clubs disbanded due to fragmented membership and donations in 2018.
In its new iteration, the club is focused on recruiting members, hosting debate watch parties, and tabling events to engage in political discussions. Founder Manu Anpalagan ’26 noted that most conservatives at Yale, however, do not support Trump and that the club’s focus is on creating a community rather than endorsing a candidate. “If we endorse a candidate, namely Donald Trump, that would surely alienate those liberal members of our club, and I don’t want to do that,” he said. He noted that most Republicans at Yale are more likely Nikki Haley supporters, rather than Trump supporters.
While the Yale College Republicans shy away from endorsing a candidate, some technically non-partisan, while still liberal, spaces have voiced support for Harris. During the Bulldog Days debate, the resolution for the Party of the Left was “Vote Blue, No Matter Who.” Hector Miranda Plaza ’26 explained that the party decided that even if members of the Democratic Party are not the fondest of Harris, they have a responsibility to vote for her: “It’s the same way you take out the trash: it’s a responsibility you have to do because otherwise, bad things happen. The trash overflows.”
Some Yale students who support Trump stay silent due to fear of being alienated from the Yale community. “My Trump-supporting friends who are generally very opinionated, they usually will not shy away from debate,” said Justin Crosby ’25, a former intern with The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (The FIRE), “But, I’ve seen one of them lie in conversation about who he’s voting for. Of the others who have told me that they’re voting for Trump, they have made me swear to some very high standards of secrecy and confidentiality regarding their names.”
Crosby continued, “Those people fear that if it were to get out it would result in the loss of friendships, the prevention of friendships, and general ostracization.”
Some students noted that they are less likely to express their support for Trump publicly depending on their corner of campus. According to Leo Greenberg ’26, the Chairman of the Conservative Party, certain departments and spheres of social life on campus have a “total ideological agreement.” While Greenberg does not support Trump, he believes Yale’s political atmosphere merits discussion. “It’s not just left of center, it’s very progressive and has a certain set of ideas about what are acceptable things to say,” he said, “If you’re navigating those worlds in certain departments, classes, etc., then you have a special incentive to be very careful in how you present yourself.”
Crosby, Analpagan, and Greenberg all noted that Trump supporters’ biggest fear is professional consequences.
Crosby, who has conducted broad interviews of on-campus conservatives, found that “people at Yale are good about handling ideological diversity, especially when candidates, names, slogans, and heuristics of identity are left out of the conversation. There are a few people for whom that is the opposite, and they’re leading a reign of terror where people live in great fear of this kind of vocal minority being outed on Twitter or Fizz.”
He also noted that he or his peers will occasionally get shut down by someone in a seminar, sometimes by a leader or a peer: “Sometimes… it’s a strong shutdown, or they’re laughed at, and even if it’s just one person it can be pretty traumatizing. They’ll resolve to never speak up in that way again in an unknown setting, which is bad.”
Many noted that even though “liberal ideology” might be louder and more public in many parts of campus, there are other organizations that provide spaces for conservative or right-wing ideology more privately. Many individuals noted that parties within the Yale Political Union (YPU) such as The Tory Party, The Federalist Party, and The Party of the Right have members who will vote for Trump. “There’s a lot of different bubbles,” noted Baldwin Edwards, “And some of the bubbles silence the other ones. There are a lot of pro-Trump or conservative views expressed more privately, like within friend group circles, social groups like fraternities or sororities, or team sports.”
“There’s an informal list of professors that conservative students circulate,” said Crosby. He named Steven Smith, Mordechai Levy-Eichel, and Carlos Eire as some of the professors that conservative students will migrate to.
Most students who spoke to The Politic acknowledged that the study body is predominantly liberal, and those are the voices that remain the loudest on campus. Baldwin Edwards noted, however, that the school might not be as liberal as it may seem on the surface, and that conservatism and support for Trump can be more covert. “We’re progressive, but 50% of the people here want to go into investment banking… I don’t usually feel like we’re that liberal of the school, honestly,” she said. She said that many students would self-describe themselves as socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and therefore many might vote red.
Students recognize the power of university leaders to articulate the values of free speech and diversity of thought publicly. Greenberg said, “Whether it’s [President] McInnis or a dean, someone coming out and loudly saying, ‘this is a place for free exchange of ideas, for openness to the full spectrum from Marxist to reactionary, for people to be tolerant and meet people they disagree with and engage with them all in the pursuit of truth and learning.’ The more that happens, the better.”