Arnav Goyal, 14, lives in Powell, Ohio, about 30 minutes north of Columbus. In 2020, Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, won Delaware County, where Powell is, by 6.9 points. Mr. Trump carried Ohio by a full eight points.
Jaden Puttiram, 17, lives in South Ozone Park in Queens — a place that told a much different political story. Joseph R. Biden Jr. won Queens County by about 45 points.
As the Headway Election Challenge, in collaboration with Chalkbeat, has shown week after week, teenagers like Mr. Goyal, a freshman at Olentangy Liberty High School, and Mr. Puttiram, a senior at Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education High School, are closely following the upcoming election, which is just two weeks away.
Though they come from politically different parts of the country, they agree on one thing: Representation in politics goes beyond just identity.
The issues matter most
Mr. Goyal and Mr. Puttiram both say that, when it comes to identity, Vice President Kamala Harris’s South Asian and Caribbean heritage partly mirrors their own. Mr. Goyal’s family originates from India, while Mr. Puttiram’s family is Indo-Guyanese.
