With the November 2026 midterm elections approaching, the question of “who will I vote for?” is on many people's minds across the country. Yale students are also preparing to cast their ballots, with many requesting mail-in and absentee ballots to vote in their home states. The Politic asked seven students, self-identifying from MAGA conservative to socialist, which issues most influence how they plan to vote.
The economy and affordability were top issues for many of our interviewees. Students also expressed concerns about the two-party system and the direction the country was headed, but remained cautiously optimistic that an opportunity to enact meaningful change could emerge.
Not all students addressed every issue; some spoke more broadly. The views expressed in this piece belong solely to the students interviewed and do not represent the positions of The Politic. Quotes have been lightly edited for length, grammar, and clarity.
Audrey S.
Junior in Silliman College, Political Science and Architecture, Ohio.
Political Background/Alignment:
Audrey self-identifies as a libertarian socialist and leftist, but is not a fan of strict ideological labels.
Savan P.
Junior in Stiles College, History, Connecticut.
Political Background/Alignment:
Savan describes himself as a progressive who favors erasing systemic inequalities so everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.
Jonah L.
First-Year in Berkeley College, prospective EEB Biology and English, Connecticut.
Political Background/Alignment:
Jonah describes himself as a non-politically active pragmatic Democrat who, when choosing between candidates, asks himself: “Which candidate will make the lives of people better?”
Kai-Shan K.
Junior in Morse College, Physics and Philosophy, New York City.
Political Background/Alignment:
Kai-Shan describes himself as left of center, though how far left remains “an open question.” He says he has moved to the right politically since arriving at Yale.
Hannah O.
Junior in Benjamin Franklin College, Ethics, Politics, and Economics, Minnesota.
Political Background/Alignment:
Hannah describes herself as a moderate disheartened by extremism on both sides of the political spectrum.
Jason C.
Sophomore in Benjamin Franklin College, Ethics, Politics and Economics, Connecticut.
Political Background/Alignment:
Jason describes himself as a traditionalist, fusionist conservative who approaches politics from an angle that respects history and tradition.
Diego V.
Senior in Berkeley College, Political Science, California.
Political Background/Alignment:
Diego self-identifies as a staunch MAGA Republican who puts America first.
Students expressed general unhappiness with the current political climate, citing a lack of candidates who reflect their viewpoints, the politicization of traditionally bipartisan topics, and campaign platforms that seemingly lack a middle ground.
Audrey:
If there were another political force that could threaten the monopoly on power that the Democratic establishment has, I would support that. A lot of times, there's a huge history of the Democrats completely funneling funds to oppose more leftist people in power, as we saw with Bernie in the 2016 election, or the support for Cuomo against Mamdani, which just seemed kind of absurd.
Jonah:
I think a lot of issues right now in the U.S. are so polarized, and climate change, in my opinion, should be a bipartisan issue.
Kai-Shan:
I do not want to live in an America where the Democratic Party has all the shots called by Chuck Schumer. I have a lot of admiration for what the democratic socialist wing of the Democratic Party is aspiring to, and I'm very curious to see where its candidates go in the next couple of years.
Jason:
The Republicans aren't passing any substantive legislation today that I would like to see. Their Congress has been completely inactive over the past year; not a single major piece of legislation has been proposed while the Republicans have a trifecta. I think traditional conservatives in the mold of Buckley and Reagan shouldn't be satisfied with the state of the Republican Party today, and I think no conservative should be satisfied with the state of the Republican Party today because it is not conservative.
Diego:
In terms of what the Trump administration is doing, I absolutely love it. I think that President Trump has really changed this country for the better and turned it around from the previous administration. Now, political violence that the left commits against the right is definitely a very important thing to address, considering that so many times leftists commit violence against conservatives.
Given the rise in cost of living, from groceries and housing to healthcare, economic conditions were a priority for all seven respondents. Some focused on economic issues affecting everyday Americans, while others stressed the importance of thinking about the country's economic future more broadly.
Audrey:
I'm most interested in [a candidate’s] material appeal, [in terms of] affordability and housing. I think expanding access, affirming SNAP benefits in different existing welfare structures, and not trying to dismantle them as we've seen with the Republican establishment. That is something that is most worrying [to me].
Savan:
I'm looking for candidates who understand the pressures of affordability for every demographic and are willing to fight that. Healthcare is insanely expensive. I think public access to healthcare has to be expanded, [such as] making Medicare a better quality service, allowing it to negotiate drug prices—all those things are really big.
It's virtually impossible to build affordable housing. I'm a Democrat, but a lot of blue cities have trouble passing affordable housing because people think it's going to affect the character of their neighborhood.
Jonah:
I think ways to fight inflation and the rising cost of living aren't issues I've really grappled with firsthand, but they're really important, and the government has so much ability to potentially fight them, and they usually aren't.
Kai-Shan:
I would love to see [a] prioritizing [of] the national debt… I think markets and, frankly, the rich world is starting to wake up to its own dangerous borrowing. When we have more than $30 trillion in debt, that simply becomes unsustainable. It's not a sexy issue, but I think it's one that is the basis on which sexy issues are built, right? While I think that a lot of America's growth in the last, say, 100 years has been enabled by borrowing, it's something that we simply can't continue to do, and I think the doomsday scenario is that America suddenly becomes an unreliable debtor.
I think many young people have recency bias and are forgetting how nice we have it. We live in an extraordinarily financially prosperous time by standards of human history. At large, it's a question of just making sure that the American culture can continue.
Hannah:
I feel quite good about the present economy, especially given that it is coming off of the worst inflation in 40 years under the Biden administration. Inflation today is still moderately high, at 3.4%, but much lower than it was previously. Other metrics show the economy is in good shape: GDP growth is high, and real median household income is at the highest level it has ever been, after falling during the Biden administration. I’m not a fan of the Trump tariffs, but luckily they haven’t contributed significantly to inflation, adding only around 0.2 to 0.4 percentage points. Unfortunately, most of the increase in the consumer price index that we see today is a result of Biden-era policies, as the consumer price index rose 21.4 percent during Biden’s term, and only 4.8 percent since Trump took office.
Jason:
Issues like entitlement reform, welfare reform, and various tax policies are what I care a lot about, and I think they're integral to how the federal government works and to the ordering of society at large. But there's not enough discourse surrounding that. We're mortgaging our futures in order to enjoy things in the present, and that's what we're doing with the deficit. So, political discourse almost has to be geared towards the future.
Diego:
I think that the economy is going in the right direction. I really like investment accounts for children. I think it's very important that we invest in America's youth. I really am a big fan of protecting our domestic economy, and so I think it's great that President Trump has been going out and creating huge economic deals with major companies to build their factories here in America to invest in American infrastructure.
Given recent tight handling of immigration domestically, students had a lot to say, especially about the presence of ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in cities and future initiatives they’d like to see.
Kai-Shan:
I am a very staunch believer that immigration is what has made America great.
I think, in many ways, the Biden administration messed up on immigration. I’m a big believer that people should be able to move to America and contribute to the American project if they so wish, but [they] have to do that in a responsible way. So, I'm neither in the deportation ICE camp nor am I in the open borders camp. I fall somewhere in between. We should enable [immigration] in a way that is legal, smart, and sensible.
Jason:
Broadly speaking, as a society, we're not caring enough about the specific nitty-gritty aspects of immigration. What are the various immigration categories? How do we reform the processes, the procedures, the various categories, quotas, and things like that to make the immigration system flow better? Immigration is a point where I would disagree with both the Democratic and Republican establishments, or at least the perceptions of what both parties believe. It’s the traditional free-market conservative position that we should increase skilled immigration, legal immigration in categories that benefit our country, such as investor visa programs, or all the employment-based visa programs. There is a very clear middle ground between these positions that no one is willing to take.
Diego:
President Trump is doing a great job. I think it's a great thing that ICE is going to major cities and conducting operations to identify, locate, and deport illegal aliens, especially those who have committed violent crimes in America. And because of weak leadership in the previous administration, families are suffering, and no one wants to talk about the angel families [Editors Note: “Angel families” refers to families whose loved ones were killed by undocumented immigrants] as much as people want to talk about illegal aliens.
It’s great that we're integrating [surveillance] technology with federal law enforcement so that we can go after these individuals and arrest and deport them. When people try to talk about the tactics of ICE, it's like they are literally getting criminals off the streets. Why are we not celebrating this? I wish there were more illegal aliens being deported.
With the U.S.’s ongoing military engagements in Israel, Palestine, and Iran, some students critiqued current policy while others laid out their hopes for future accountability and less foreign intervention.
Audrey:
I would not look favorably on politicians who are just continuing full-fledged support of the war in Iran, even advocating for more U.S. troops, and in Israel. I'm very anti-interventionist in that sense. I think in a lot of current rhetoric on relations with Israel and Gaza, there are some people who think everything just started on October 7th, and that's where our real issue has come from, which is ignoring the vast historical legacies of both movements.
Jonah:
Any politician who's primarily talking about the military in their platform isn't going to actually do good things for the people of the U.S. or other countries. I'm definitely against the way the U.S. military intervenes in other countries right now. I don't think what we're doing in Iran is going to realistically end well for anybody. Ideologically, it's a little tricky because obviously I don't like their current government; I'm really conflicted about the whole idea of: should powerful democracies start doing regime change in dictatorships? That's a tricky moral question, but I don't think we're approaching it like [one]. We have to stop doing things in other countries without a plan, without any way of getting to a good outcome.
Diego:
What [Trump] is doing with Iran is the right thing to do. I think it's the right thing to do to attack their nuclear sites and destroy their ability to create and develop nuclear weapons. Because, in fact, this is a very long-term strategic approach to an immediate threat. Iran wants to destroy Israel, wants to kill innocent lives, and not just them, but also other Middle Eastern countries that suffer from the violence of their proxy terrorist cells. Iran is aiding and supporting countless terrorist cells and terrorists themselves in the Middle East that kill innocent people. And not just in the Middle East, but also in Europe and domestically [in the US].
Israel [also] has the right to defend itself, and I'm staunchly supportive of Israel.
The U.S. is currently dominated by the two major parties, but are students happy with it? The Politic asked respondents about their opinions on the two-party system.
Jonah:
Yeah, it is a bit of a sad reality. I really prefer parliamentary systems because it means your vote counts a lot more in terms of being able to match a wide range of candidates. It also means there's no balancing force a lot of the time. Either we're in a deadlock, or one party's managed to gain enough control that they can just do whatever they want. And so there's not like this sense of compromise in the government.
Kai-Shan:
The problem with the two-party system is that they can snap up any promising political talent and pump money into the campaign, and it's an offer, frankly, that candidates can't refuse.
Hannah:
Regarding the political climate, I’m deeply concerned about the rise of extremism in both parties. As a moderate, I was disheartened by both Flanagan and El Sayed’s primary victories, as well as Ken Paxton’s. All three candidates represent the most extreme versions of their parties and fuel a climate of partisan polarization that is damaging for everyone. I especially dislike how the shift towards the far-left and far-right has made productive discourse difficult. People who view their opponents as fundamentally evil and unable to be negotiated with are uninterested in discovering the truth and unwilling to change their minds when presented with conflicting information.
Jason:
I'm in support of procedural reforms, like open primaries and things like that, so that we can encourage politicians to appeal to a wider portion of the political spectrum. The primary system only rewards the extremes of either party and ignores the vast majority of people in the middle.
Diego:
Republicans really do care about Americans, really do care about people. Both sides may say it, but the Republican Party is the only one that is showing it. If you look at the policies that both sides present, and you look at which ones are common-sense solutions and which ones are best for yourself and for your family, it is easily by far the Republican Party. You know which one supports and defends democracy. It's the Republican Party. You know we're not the party of socialists. We're not one big tent party, as Chuck Schumer tried to put it. You know who protects American values and freedom. It's Republicans. So I guess that's the biggest takeaway: you know Republicans are the ones trying to fix and save America.
Editor’s note: Readers interested in learning more about the conversations can contact the editorial board of The Politic .