Students debate their role in the upcoming midterm elections

By Nethan Sivarapu and Maxwell Taniguchi-King

Tahoma Multimedia Editors

While much of the world’s attention has been drawn toward the approaching midterm elections in November, a vast body of individuals seems to have been overlooked: students. We began exploring this set of voices as the midterms neared.

To investigate said student views, we set out to question various students at Summit Public School: Tahoma. As the individuals were questioned, many admitted to being uninformed about the elections.

The midterm elections on Nov. 6 will play a large role in politics for years to come. Usa.gov reports all 435 seats of the house, one-third of all senators, 36 state governors, three U.S. territory governors and many mayoral elections are on the line. With this amount of potential change, significant adjustments are expected.

Two major elections taking place during the midterms have grabbed attention: the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Senators hold six-year terms, with two senators being elected for every state. Currently, the Senate holds 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats and two Independents.

The House of Representatives consists of 435 positions, with each state assigned a specific amount of seats based on population. The current House consists of 238 Republicans, 193 Democrats and six vacant seats.

Evident through these numbers, Republicans hold the 115th Congress. This might change, though, as the midterms advance and bring the 116th Congress. According to FiveThirtyEight, although the Senate is predicted to remain under Republican control, House predictions favor Democrats with a four in five likelihood. This amount of potential change generated curiosity in what students think of the elections.

Approaching students at Summit Tahoma with different questions regarding the elections created a chance to understand the beliefs that students hold. Following these interviews, attention was brought to what other people think of students and their role in the midterms. To address this, we began locating an alternate, non-student, point of view.

Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a politician raised in the Bay Area, represents Silicon Valley. During a press conference at Summit Tahoma, Rep. Lofgren answered a few questions relating to our student interviews. These questions reflected our previous interviews and introduced a new angle on the topic.

This video documents our interviews as we investigate students’ influence on politics and their opinions regarding the midterm elections in November: