Boston-area college students hold their breath for Harris on election night

Local collegiate chapters of historically Black sororities and fraternities — collectively known as the Divine Nine — watched election results roll in at Tufts University in Medford on Tuesday night.

Chinaza Aham-neze, a junior at Wellesley College studying data science and economics, said the goal of Tuesday's event was to show community support, regardless of the outcome of the very close presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

"We understand that during the election, whether it's highly anticipated, highly stressful — I know for me, I woke up this morning feeling very stressed," said Aham-neze, chapter president of the Xi Tau chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. "This is a time for you to really be with your community."

The organizations part of the Divine Nine are nonpartisan and have not endorsed a presidential candidate.

Still, many in the room held high hopes for Harris. Cheers erupted when Massachusetts and Maryland were called for her. As the night wore on, Trump's lead in the electoral vote count mounted.

Many of the students were voting in their first presidential election. Aham-neze, 20, cast her milestone vote by absentee ballot in her home state of Texas.

Among the 30 or so students in the room watching the results on the big screen — and getting a bit of homework done — were also members of Alpha Kappa Alpha. Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris is part of the historical Black sorority.

Belinda Daniel, a Boston University senior and member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, said she came to the gathering to absorb the results in a comforting environment.

She voted for Harris in her home state of New York, saying the most important issues for her in the election were abortion and women's rights.

"As a Black woman, maternal mortality rates are very high," she said. "I am pro-choice, I think it's very important that each woman has a right to an abortion if that's what they want. Us living in a free country, I believe that this right should not be stripped of us. This is something I'm personally very passionate about, very enthusiastic about.

"We're not voting for just for today, but we're voting for our future," she added.

At Simmons University, the crowd at the election "slumber party" had thinned. The snacks were eaten. The mood had dampened.

Trump's path to victory had widened. And the remaining students were huddled around NBC's coverage, laptops and phones out.

"Gen Z loves Steve Kornacki," said Helena Saldivar-Mieres, a senior political science student at the women-focused college. She said many of the people in the room had also volunteered for candidates this election cycle.

"I'm desperately clinging on to like any kind of hope that there might be like some kind of election miracle," she said.

Saldivar-Mieres said while it was important for many at the women's college to have a woman on the ballot, some students felt torn because of Harris' stance on the war in Gaza.

"I think a lot of people would have resonated with Kamala Harris more, especially if she had been a little bit more sympathetic towards the people of Palestine," she said.

Georgina Davis, a sophomore at Simmons, said she cast her ballot by mail in her home state of Arizona. She voted for Harris, saying she would feel unsafe in Arizona as a queer person if Trump wins.

"Arizona is not the strongest supporter of LGBTQ youth. As someone who went to a high school that was not exactly what the best place to be a queer teenager," she said. "It was very enlightening to just sort of see the differences between here and there."

Simmons students Julia Pellegrino, a sophomore majoring in nursing, and Caroline Fleischhauer, a sophomore studying physical therapy, felt anxious.

"I kind of thought it was going to be close in like the opposite way that it's going right now," Pellegrino said. "I'm waiting for the mail-in ballots to kind of fully filter in, but it's like really stressful right now. It's super close."

Fleischhauer said if Trump wins, she's concerned about the Supreme Court.

"With Project 2025, he has the opportunity to replace so many Supreme Court justices and that will affect our country for decades," she said.

And if Harris wins, she said she worries there could be more attempts to overthrow the government, like Jan. 6.

Earlier in the night, before Trump had taken North Carolina and Georgia, Jada Daley, a BU senior and member of Delta Sigma Theta, said LGBTQ identity drove her to cast her first-ever presidential vote for Harris. (She voted absentee in her home state of Connecticut.)

"I wanted to make sure that the candidate had us in mind ... just having us in mind is the bare minimum," she said, adding that she also cares deeply about issues like education, public health and women's rights.

Daley said even if Harris didn't win, she felt heartened by the participation she saw in the election.

"I saw a lot of my community go out there and vote. And even if it doesn't go in our favor, that's a big step for us regardless. We're getting out there, we're showing our numbers."