Polls for the presidential race will close on Tuesday, Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. Voters must be 17 and 10 months old and have to be registered 30 days before the election date. With voting coming to an end in less than a week, students have already voted or plan to vote. 

• What political party do you align with? I think I lean more towards democrat.

• Who did you vote for? Kamala Harris.

• How do you feel about the upcoming election? I’m kinda scared. People can get ugly during elections when it shouldn’t be an ugly thing. 
• How do you feel about media outlets reporting on the election? I think it’s crazy. There’s just things being put out on the internet like, ‘woah, hold on’. 
• How do you feel about celebrities endorsing political candidates? It doesn’t let people vote for themselves. They see other people doing it and so they wanna do it. 

Leading up to the election public figures have announced their endorsement towards the political candidates. Former president Barack Obama and former First Lady, Michelle Obama, announced they would be endorsing Harris. Musical artists such as Taylor Swift and Puerto Rican artist, Bad Bunny, have also endorsed the vice-president. While actor Mel Gibson announced in a TMZ video he would be voting for Donald Trump. 

• What political party do you align with? Republican

• Who would you vote for if you could? Donald Trump

• How do you feel about the upcoming election? I think its gonna be good. Both candidates, I will say, are putting up a tough fight. They’re trying really hard, and then looking at their debates, they’ve been rough. One’s always gonna do better than the other.

• How do you feel about media outlets reporting on the election? Depending on what news station or who the moderator is, they say they’re not gonna fact check it and then they do fact check and that’s not fair because they’re only doing it to one side and not the other. And i think that they put stuff out there that is bias when they’re supposed to be unbias. So it makes it unfair and it makes people think ‘Oh, well this person is better than this person based on what they saw on the news’ but they didn’t say the whole story.

• How do you feel about celebrities endorsing political candidates? I think its good that celebrities endorse the candidates because a lot of people follow these celebrities and I think that gets more votes for them depending on who they like?

Media bias is not a new problem and voters are used to hearing bias in news outlets or retraction statements from these outlets. To abstain from any accusations of bias some publications avoid endorsing any candidates. The Washington Post announced they would not be endorsing any political candidates in this election or any future elections despite their endorsements in the past year. 

• What party do you align with? Center right, but there’s a lot of things with democrats and liberals that I do agree with more. 
• Who did you vote for? I’d like to abstain from that question.

• How do you feel about the upcoming election? It could go either way. I’m disappointed in the quality of candidates. I feel like neither of the two presidents represent my views. It seems like there’s a lot of pandering with the candidates to things that just don’t really matter. For example, Kamala makes a lot of appeals. She had Beyonce come out to her most recent Texas rally and that kind of didn’t go well. Trump will often lie about things and just make blatant false statements. So both of them are pandering to random things and not actually talking about what policy they’re gonna implement. 

• How do you feel about media outlets reporting on the election? False news is always gonna be a problem but I think as long as those companies are going out and correct it. I know Fox News and CNN have gone back and retracted statements. I try and look at as many sources as possible, so I can really understand the situation at hand, and not really be bias left or right.
• How do you feel about celebrities endorsing candidates? It’s unimportant, it doesn’t matter. A lot of time celebrities tend to not have any higher education, or any education at all. And a lot of times they are very jaded, and have been extremely gifted from a very young age with lots of money. They can not connect with someone like me, who’s a more average american. So I think it’s pointless, and I don’t really care.

As of Oct. 28, Trump was in the lead to win Texas with a 6.2% lead above Harris in the 270towin polling average of the presidential election. 

• How do you feel about the upcoming election? I’m excited, Im looking forward to see who wins the ballot. 

• How do you feel about being a new voter? I feel like its one of the first steps that ive got of freedom because im becoming 18. 

• What political party do you align with? Democratic

• Who will you be voting for? Kamala Harris

• How do you feel about celebrities endorsing political candidates? I think its pretty brave because its really controversial. I think Katy Perry was pretty democratic, so was Taylor Swift, and Elon Musk is Republican. He was wearing a black ‘MAGA’ hat it was pretty funny. I think everyones pretty vocal on what side they’re on. I think its cool, its pretty interesting to see different perspectives. 
• How do you feel about false news or media outlets reporting on the election? I think its really bias, especially Kamalas campaign. I feel like they’ve been really public and open, and Donald Trumps campaign, I feel like its a little quiet or quieter than it was last election. It used to be all Donald Trump on social media, but its since expanded. Kamala has got a better reach of generations. 

The United States has a statistically lower voter turnout but since the 2000s, turnout has increased. This year, 18 million Texans are registered to vote with 50 to 60 percent expected to vote in the presidential election.