UT students are more likely to vote against the opposing candidate than in support of their own party’s candidate in the 2016 presidential election, according to a recent UT poll.

Following historical precedent, Texas is sticking with the Republican candidate in the 2016 presidential election. However, a recent UT Texas Politics Project Poll revealed that although the majority of Texas votes would go to the Republican candidate, when asked why people wanted to vote for a certain candidate most responders indicated that their vote for a candidate was actually more of a vote against another candidate.

The overall results revealed that 41 percent of voters will support Trump while 33 percent of voters will support Clinton. When asked about reasons for supporting Trump, 55 percent of Trump supporters said they were voting for Trump because they did not want Hillary Clinton to be elected. Forty-five percent said they truly wanted Donald Trump to be elected president.

University Democrats representative Joseph Trahan says that this election has shaken the foundation of the United States and that Trump does not understand what it takes to run the country. When asked about the reasons behind voting, Trahan said that certain actions by Hillary Clinton in the past have overshadowed her extensive efforts to improve the state of the country and these outliers are poisoning people’s minds against her.

“As Democrats, we believe that a Trump presidency would be damaging to our nation's stability at home and abroad,” Trahan said.

There was no comment from UT College Republicans.

Radio-television-film senior Colton Massey said that students are polling for candidates that they do not support, but only because they feel they should vote for someone. They are choosing the “lesser of two evils.”

“I believe [Gary Johnson] takes the good of both parties and combines them into one ideology…[If] voters did their research on him along with his running mate that they would see that he is the best choice that is available in all 50 states,” Massey said.

Brittany Nicole, a recent UT graduate, said that she is unsurprised that most of Texas is supporting Trump as the state is known for having a conservative reputation. She said that there had been a lot of mudslinging and she thinks that the election will be close.

“Texas is always a red state and the majority will follow the party until the end,” Nicole said.