Kimo Ah Yun Describes His Path to Marquette’s Presidency—and the Path to Marquette’s Future

Kimo Ah YunKimo Ah Yun calls his personal history an “underdog story.” He was one of the large number of young people across the United States who had the ability to do big things, but who came from circumstances where doing them was rare.

A child of parents who did not graduate from high school, a native of low-income Compton, Calif., someone who learned lessons about life from pumping gas. He became a first-generation college graduate who didn’t really know what grad school was, but who had mentors who put him on paths to a master’s degree, a doctorate, a professorship, a deanship, a provostship, and, now, the presidency of Marquette University.

Ah Yun thinks about all those who didn’t make it the way he has. During a “Get to Know” program at Marquette Law School’s Eckstein Hall on Jan. 17, he described his own path. “I never expected to be sitting in this chair next to you,” he told the program’s moderator, Derek Mosley, director of the Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. But Ah Yun added, “I think about all the people who could have had that opportunity, and for some reason could not see it.”

He recalled a woman who was a schoolmate of his. She was “a phenomenally brilliant person,” he said. “She was smarter than every one of us in school,” he said. “But she never saw it. . . . If you don’t see the pathway, you can never get there. She could have done anything she wanted to, but she did not ever see a pathway for her.”

One of his roles as the 25th president of Marquette is to help more people get on that pathway and to help all students, regardless of their backgrounds, to become the best people they can be. To Ah Yun, that is the heart of Catholic, Jesuit education and the heart of what he was inspired to do by his close friend and predecessor as president, Michael Lovell, who died in June 2024.

Ah Yun told an audience of about 200 that getting an education so you can get a job is important, but that’s far from all Marquette wants its students to set as a goal. Jesuit education means “changing fundamentally who you are as a person and how you interface with the world.” It means making sure you have a moral compass that tells you what is right and what is wrong. It means growing to be someone who cares about others and who is engaged in helping others. “A Jesuit education, to me, is positioning you to have a great life” and to make everyone around you better, Ah Yun said.

Of all the universities in America, Marquette, he said, has the highest percentage of students who are involved in public service. That was at the top of Ah Yun’s list of positive things about Marquette. Asked by Mosley what he most relishes about his job as president of Marquette, Ah Yun said, “Telling our story. We have a great story.”

But he also said that, like all universities, Marquette is facing headwinds as the world of higher education changes, including demographic trends that point to a smaller pool of students in coming years. “We’re going to have rethink things,” he said. While still focusing on students, Marquette is going to have to pull back on some things. For colleges as a whole, including Marquette, there will be “hard decisions, hard times, very disruptive,” Ah Yun said. He pointed to colleges in the United States that have closed in the last several years and mentioned Cardinal Stritch University in Fox Point as one of them.

Ah Yun’s path to Marquette is in itself a colorful story, even without reference to his challenging earlier years. He had been a professor in communications for two decades at California State College, Sacramento, where he got his bachelor’s degree. “I never thought I would ever leave there because it was home,” he said. But he was contacted by representatives of a search firm that was aiming to find a new dean for Marquette’s Diederich College of Communication. He put them off, saying he wasn’t interested. But they were persistent. They convinced him to at least visit Marquette. He agreed but, he said, “I didn’t bring a suit,” because he didn’t intend to take the job. And the night before his interview, he went to a Marquette basketball game rather than prepare for the next day’s session.

He described aspects of his conduct during the interview as somewhat “snarky.” He said, “I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.” But he was invited back for a second interview. He told the search firm representative he had no interest in the job and had a lot of personal reasons to stay in California. But they convinced him to come back and to bring his wife along. He began to take it more seriously.

The key turning point was when Ah Yun was taken to meet Lovell. “He was inspiring,” Ah Yun said. “We were aligned in thinking about a student-centered university that was focused on transforming the lives of our students.” His attitude changed, “I knew I could come work for Mike,” he said. And it went beyond that: “I said I could be a better person if I worked with a guy like that.”

Ah Yun became the communication dean and later the interim provost of the university and then the provost in 2019. After Lovell died, Ah Yun was named interim president and, in November 2024, in his ninth year with Marquette, he was named president.

Marquette needs to stick to its core competencies, he said. It’s not a university that aims to succeed by building online education. It’s an in-person university. “We engage and transform people,” he said. Marquette’s leaders will need to do things ahead that show how they care for the institution itself—but also show that the university has “a foundation where we teach people to love one another.”

Video of the one-hour conversation with Ah Yun may be viewed by clicking here.

Continue ReadingKimo Ah Yun Describes His Path to Marquette’s Presidency—and the Path to Marquette’s Future

What do voters and non-voters really think about Donald Trump?

Donald Trump is the most famous person in, arguably, the world. His name was googled more than any other in 2024, 2023, 2021, and 2019. To better understand how American adults feel about this ubiquitous figure, we asked each of the 1,063 respondents in the Marquette Law School Poll national survey of adults, December 2-11, 2024, to answer two questions in their own words.

  • What do you like about Donald Trump?
  • What do you dislike about Donald Trump?

The order of the two questions was randomized. Since the survey was conducted online, respondents could write as much as they wished. (These “open-ended questions” were part of a more traditional survey, the subject of separate news releases.)

In the 2024 election, 36% of our sample voted for Kamala Harris, 38% for Donald Trump, 3% for a third-party candidate, and 23% didn’t vote. The sample gets the mix of Harris and Trump supporters right, though it overrepresents voters as a whole. Early estimates suggest that about 36% of eligible voters didn’t participate in the 2024 election.

We classified each of the respondents by whether or not they answered both questions. A majority—51% of respondents—listed at least one thing they liked and disliked about Trump. (We classified clearly sarcastic responses as non-answers.) Listing things they dislike about Trump but including nothing positive were 35%. Fewer adults, 12%, listed positive things about Trump but nothing negative.

Perceptions of Trump and vote choice

The table below shows how each of those groups voted in 2024. Trump and Harris each won equal shares of the adults (76%) with, respectively, only positive or only negative views of the former president. Among those listing both likes and dislikes of Trump, 55% voted for Trump, 17% for Harris, 4% for a third party, and 24% did not vote.

In other words, just over a third of adults held wholly negative views of Trump and just over 10% held wholly positive views. Their votes reflect those views. But Trump won the lion’s share of the vote among people with mixed views of him.

2024 vote of U.S. adults by their view of Trump
About Donald J. Trumpnpct of totalHarrisTrumpThird partyNonvoter
Can name likes and dislikes54551%17%55%4%24%
Doesn’t dislike anything12612%1%76%3%20%
Doesn’t like anything37335%76%1%1%22%
no answer192%31%18%6%46%
Total1,063100%36%38%3%23%

These data also shed some light on how Trump managed to defeat Harris after losing to Joe Biden in 2020. We asked respondents about their participation in the 2020 presidential election. Thirty-five percent remembered voting for Biden, 31% for Trump, 3% for third parties, and 31% said they didn’t vote. Recalled vote may be error-prone, but in this case it closely matches Joe Biden’s 4.5-point margin of victory in 2020.

Harris won about the same share as Biden had among the 35% of adults who couldn’t name anything they like about Trump. Like Biden, she won practically none of the vote among those who dislike nothing about Trump. And Harris won about the same fraction of the vote as Biden among those naming both likes and dislikes about Trump.

While Harris’ vote share changed little from Biden’s in each group, Trump’s vote share grew among those with mixed feelings. Trump won 55% of adults with mixed feelings, up from 46% in 2020. This was possible because the share that did not vote in this group fell from 33% in 2020 to 24% in 2024. Likewise, Trump in 2024 won 76% of the vote among those expressing no negative views of him, up from 59% among these same adults in 2020. And only 20% of these adults didn’t vote in 2024, down from 38% in 2020.

2020 vote of U.S. adults by their view of Trump in Dec. 2024
among adults surveyed Dec. 2-11, 2024
About Donald J. Trumpnpct of totalBidenTrumpThird partyNonvoter
Can name likes and dislikes54551%18%46%3%33%
Doesn’t dislike anything12612%2%59%1%38%
Doesn’t like anything37335%71%1%2%25%
no answer192%23%18%6%54%
Total1,063100%35%31%3%31%

In our December 2024 sample, Harris defeated Trump by 3 percentage points among 2024 voters who also voted in 2020. Among 2024 voters who didn’t vote in 2020, she lost by 12 points.

Our survey is just one data point in a sense, but it adds to the emerging body of evidence that Trump’s campaign successfully turned out infrequent, “low-propensity” voters who like Trump but often stay home.

Explore the data

There is no substitute for reading the words of voters themselves. Click here to access our web app for viewing responses. The tool allows you to see 5 randomly* selected responses with each click of the button. Some of these responses contain profane language and many contain typos. We present them in unedited form.

RespondentSample random responses
Vote in 2024Vote in 2020What do you like about Donald Trump?What do you dislike about Donald Trump?
Male, 34, HispanicDonald TrumpDonald TrumpBusiness plans to bring back production to America, and border controlGrandiose attitude and speaking without thinking about the consequences.
Male, 27, Other/MultipleDid not voteDid not voteGood president for economic purposes. In my opinion, prefer trump over kamalaTariffs for other countries are too much
Female, 50, WhiteDonald TrumpDonald TrumpHis policies of smaller gov’t and less regulations which will open America up to less restrictions on oil and gas. Also his policies on immigration and closing the border align with my views.His mouth and some of the unprofessional things he says
Female, 44, BlackKamala HarrisJoe BidenHe doesn’t care at allHim personally
Male, 49, WhiteDonald TrumpDid not votePolicies, strength globally, strong economy. Strong border security.Nothing. Donald Trump was an excellent president before and will be excellent again.
Female, 51, Other/MultipleDid not voteJoe BidenI feel like when Donald Trump was president we had peace with other countries and the fact it was no inflation and the crime was more controlledN/A
Continue ReadingWhat do voters and non-voters really think about Donald Trump?

How Donald Trump is Changing the Map in Milwaukee County

Small shifts from one election to another may be random and temporary, but consistent changes across three elections show something more enduring.

Across 29% of Milwaukee County, Trump in 2016 was more popular than Mitt Romney and he grew more popular still in each reelection campaign. In another 26% of the county he was less popular than Romney and continued to decline in each reelection campaign. Throughout the remainder of the county, his popularity has fluctuated—in most places dipping in 2020 and growing in 2024.

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maps showing the change in vote from one presidential election to the next

For this analysis, I compared the election results from each Milwaukee County suburb along with the 15 City of Milwaukee aldermanic districts (using 2024 boundaries).[i] Each aldermanic district is home to about 38,000 residents, making their population about the same as Oak Creek or Franklin.

Consider the following four regions.

line plot showing the change in vote since 2012 in different areas of Milwaukee County

Milwaukee Core

About 269,000 people live in the Milwaukee core region. This is the poorest area, with a per capita income of $22,000. Only 15% of adults over age 24 have a bachelor’s degree. About 14% of adults are white, 56% are black, and 23% Hispanic.

The voters in the Milwaukee core overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates—Kamala Harris won these 7 districts combined by 74 points. But Donald Trump has made significant inroads here. His 2024 performance was 12 points better than Mitt Romney’s in 2012.

Trump’s improvement here has been practically monotonic. Trump in 2016 was 3.9 points more popular than Romney in 2012. Trump in 2020 was 3.4 points more popular than Trump in 2016. And Trump in 2024 was 4.5 points more popular than Trump in 2020.

Northern Suburbs

The opposite political trend is occurring in Milwaukee’s northern suburbs (pop. 116,000). Across these communities the adult population is 78% white, 64% of those over 24 have a college degree, and the per capita income is $58,000.

Voters here have shifted sharply to the left in response to Trump. Romney lost the area by 13 points, Trump 2016 by 32 points, Trump 2020 by 42 points, and Trump 2024 by 45 points.

Southern Suburbs

Milwaukee County’s southern suburbs (pop. 246,000) are more working class than their northern counterpart. About 33% of adults over 24 have a college degree, and the per capita income is $41,000. The same share of population is white (78%) as in the northern suburbs, but more residents are Hispanic and fewer are Black.

The southern suburbs have long been the most conservative part of the county. Trump won them by 2.2 points in 2016, before losing them by 3.4 in 2020 and 2.9 in 2024.

Milwaukee Periphery

This leaves the collection of neighborhoods I’m calling the “Milwaukee periphery,” as they surround the Milwaukee core. These eight aldermanic districts hold 308,000 residents. The adult population is 57% white, 21% Black, and 14% Hispanic. The per capita income ($37,000) is slightly lower than in the southern suburbs, but the share of those ages 25 and up with a college degree (37%) is slightly higher.

Collectively, the Milwaukee Periphery gave Harris a 45-point victory, virtually identical to her margin of victory in the Northern Suburbs. However, the Trump-era political trajectory of the periphery has more closely resembled that of the southern suburbs.

Trump in 2016 declined by 2.8 points relative to Romney in 2012, and Trump in 2020 was 5 points less popular here than in 2016. Then, the trend reversed slightly, with Trump in 2024 improving by 1.2 points over his 2020 defeat.

Educational sorting

The results in Milwaukee are consistent with the national political realignment in the Trump era. If anything, Trump’s increase in support in Milwaukee’s urban core may trail the changes seen in some other cities.

Formal educational attainment remains one of the clearest predictors of a neighborhood’s changing levels of support for Donald Trump. About 32% of Wisconsin adults (ages 25 and older) have earned a bachelor’s degree (or more).

Since 2012, Democrats have gained the most in the parts of Milwaukee county where more than 50% have earned a bachelor’s degree. Democratic gains have been smaller in places where between 30% and 50% of adults have a college degree.

In places where college degree attainment trails the state average, Trump has usually made gains.

scatterplot comparing the shift in vote from 2012 to 2024 with the share of adults ages 25+ with a college degree

There are exceptions. Fewer than 20% of adults in the Village of West Milwaukee have a college degree, but Harris’ margin of victory was 10 points larger than Obama’s in 2012. This increase in Democratic support likely reflects changes to the racial composition of West Milwaukee, where the non-Hispanic white share of the population declined by about 15 percentage points over the past decade.

Keep this point in mind. Even though Black and Latino voters give Republicans more support than they once did, they still vote for Democrats at a higher rate than white voters overall. Consequently, an increase in the Black or Latino population of a community is still likely to increase its Democratic vote share.

Data Note:

See this repository for the data and graphics used in this article.

This table shows the trend in each Milwaukee County suburb and city aldermanic district in 2012 and 2024.

table showing how different places in Milwaukee County voted in the 2012 and 2024 presidential races

[i] Past elections were held under different ward boundaries, so I aggregated the Milwaukee city results into the current alder districts based on population overlap.

Continue ReadingHow Donald Trump is Changing the Map in Milwaukee County