As the U.S. elections get closer, the whole world is watching, but what is it like for young people in the U.S. to follow the elections?

Rachel Pinnick is 22 years old and will be voting for the second time this year. ‘Now that the elections are so close, you can really feel it on the streets,’ she says.

In Belgium, we saw debate after debate, but in the U.S., that’s not the case at all. ‘This year, we’ve only had one debate between Trump and Harris, and one between the two vice presidential candidates.’

When Rachel first had to vote, she was still in high school. ‘In school, we don’t get lessons about the elections. You do have a class in senior year about how our government works, but we don’t really get explanations about the different political parties.’ Rachel adds that she would have found that helpful back then: ‘It’s not so easy to get the right information about the different candidates. Some newspapers publish stories, but most of them aren’t neutral and clearly favor one candidate.’

Rachel lives in Indiana, a state where Trump is expected to win. She plans to vote for Trump on November 5th as well. ‘The people in Indiana are mostly farmers and hard workers. We focus a lot on the economy and whether we can still afford to buy a house after our studies. I think that’s why Trump is so popular here.’

Text: Tone Berghmans
Picture: ulleo