Four days after election day, news organizations determined Joe Biden as the president-elect. This ended one of the most unusual election years and De Anza College students have mixed feelings about it. 

Political science major Ananya Bapat, 19, said she was nervous on the first day of the election. 

“The Trump presidency has done so much damage,” she said. “We didn’t want four more years of Trump because everything would have just spiraled even more out of control.”

She said that change was more necessary in the 2020 election than 2016 because of the pandemic.

“Donald Trump wasn’t even handling the pandemic,” she said. “It was just like, whatever will happen, it will happen.” 

Without the pandemic, Jeffrey Kasprow, 31, a paralegal and political science major, said that Trump would have been reelected. Still, Trump won many votes, which Kasprow believes is because of poor messaging from Democrats. 

“Things like childcare, education and health care, are very important,” said Kasprow. “There’s only one party that’s having that discussion. So it has to make you wonder, are the Democrats not getting their message out enough, or is America inherently racist?” 

Since the election was close and his favored propositions did not pass, Kasprow said that he was not satisfied with the election. 

Fatema Kazi, 19, a philosophy and physics major, though, said that she will be satisfied with it as long as the government conducts it fairly.   

“I won’t be satisfied if mailed-in ballots are thrown out,” said Kazi. “But other than that, like recounts and everything, as long as they’re done fairly and also legally, I am satisfied with them.” 

President Trump and his team have filed lawsuits in multiple states, alleging widespread voter fraud despite a lack of evidence. 

“I still feel like Trump’s gonna win,” Kazi said. “That might be because I live in an entirely white neighborhood who are very much gun-loving Trump supporters.” 

She said she feels like the country has become more divided, but it is a cross-party issue. 

“That is definitely not entirely Donald Trump’s responsibility,” Kazi said. “ But at the same time, there are so many things they should have done to dispel it.”