Friday, November 13, 2026
Aman Islam was 14 and a student at Memorial Junior High School when Donald Trump was first elected president in 2016. Islam still remembers how quiet the halls were the next day.
“PURE SHOCK,” Islam wrote in a comment this past week on the Herald’s Facebook page.
A decade later, the Valley Stream native said the Nov. 3 election felt like the close of a chapter that defined his generation’s view of politics. Democrats made sweeping gains across the country, and Gov. Kathy Hochul easily defeated Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in the race for governor.
“Finally, Tuesday, it felt different,” Islam wrote. “I felt hope for the first time.”
Not everyone in Valley Stream shares that feeling, however. When the Herald asked residents on Facebook how they felt about the results, the responses ranged from celebration to disappointment. Several respondents warned both parties not to read too much into a single night.
Islam, who graduated from Valley Stream Central High School in 2020 and is now studying for a master’s in public administration at New York University, said that Gen Z voters like him grew up watching politics turn bitter. He was too young, he said, to feel the hope many people felt during Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.
The division, Islam said, hit close to home. He felt Valley Stream was often singled out by critics on the right. “Villainizing our community, and making assumptions on us because of our beautiful diversity & proximity to Queens,” he wrote.
In a phone interview, Islam said the shift he saw among young voters had less to do with party labels than with money. Many in his generation, he said, can’t afford college or a house without incurring heavy debt, and they find it frustrat
ing to see so much federal money spent on overseas conflicts.
“I think people still think with their pockets,” Islam said.
He also pushed back against older voters who see the rise of democratic socialist candidates as a step toward communism. Their fear, Islam said, is often fed by one-sided news and misleading, artificial intelligence-generated videos online. People are struggling to afford groceries and gas, he said, and many young adults can’t afford to move out of their parents’ homes.
“Why not try something new?” Islam said. “This current system … it’s clearly not working.”
Wendy Wass said she saw the elections differently. “Disappointed in the results,” she wrote. “The world is taking a sharp turn to socialism and it’s really not good.”
Others were thrilled. Renee Marable-Watson described last Tuesday as the “best election since Obama,” and Gail Frankel Reiser wrote simply, “People are waking up. Good.”
Rajiv Lall Sharma said that economic pressure drove the outcome. He argued that money is being spent everywhere except on the American people, including on what he called a senseless war.
“The people have spoken loudly and do not want anything of that nature,” Sharma wrote.
Lorin David challenged that view in a reply, pointing to the 400,000 new millionaires he said the country has produced.
For Fonseca-Matos Gladys, the governor’s race came down to the candidates. “Blakeman was not a good pick!” she wrote.
Charlie Ambrosino wrote that voters on both sides were focused on one issue: “Exit polls from both sides said it was the corruption.”
Milton Ponce took a more practical view, saying that everyday needs come first no matter who holds power. “My logic is ‘no matter how you flip my sandwich the bread comes first,’” Ponce wrote. “Nobody sitting in the Oval Office can stop that.”
Roy Smalling said that Republicans should take a more moderate approach to appeal to swing voters, while warning Democrats against allowing the party’s progressive wing to gain too much influence. Republicans, he said, should study why they lost ground with Southern voters and moderates, and the solution may be as simple as toning down the rhetoric. But Democrats should be wary too, Smalling wrote, noting how much moderate Democrats outperformed liberal ones and cautioning against the party’s socialist wing taking over.
In his view, swing voters decide elections, and they don’t care about lawn signs or political labels. “They vote with how they feel in the present with complete disregard for red or blue uniforms,” Smalling wrote. “They ask is their life better? If it’s not — you’re out.”
He added that politics moves in cycles. “The only losers will be from those who do not learn from the results,” he wrote.
