Why I’m Voting

Any candidate for president must make the case to Americans that their vote will make a difference to their communities and to the rest of the country. The stakes of any election are also deeply personal. Members of the Times editorial board explain what is motivating their vote in 2024.

Mara Gay

In the year since the Oct. 7 attacks, it has sometimes felt as though America, already divided, might tear itself apart.

During the same period, a remarkably varied group of Americans — Jewish and Muslim, Arab and Black — have been united in their love for Samantha Woll, an activist for social justice and president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue in Detroit. She was found dead outside her home on Oct. 21, 2023, the victim of a homicide.

Sam was my classmate and my friend. After her death, expressions of disbelief flooded my phone from those who knew her. “Someone murdered our friend,” one of them wrote, speaking for us all. She was just 40 years old.

When I vote for Kamala Harris this November, it will be for her.

Many people have called Sam a “bridge builder” because of the work she did to bring together Jewish and Muslim communities in Detroit, and that is true. Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who is a Palestinian American, called Sam a “friend” and a “deeply loved member of our social justice community.”