After a disappointing showing during the Democratic presidential primary, more young people are primed to vote in the November election than before — with a new issue becoming the factor concerning them most, a new survey indicates.
A national poll of 18-to-29 year olds released this week by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that 63 percent of respondents said they will “definitely be voting” in November’s election. The number is a significant increase from the 47 percent who said the same thing before the 2016 presidential election.
And for the first time in the survey’s history, young voters said that the economy is the top issue they’re considering when they head to the polls. Nearly 1 in 4 18-to-29-year-olds consider the economy the No. 1 issue. The pandemic has significantly altered the economy and the job market, including for workers just starting their careers. Some young voters fear that the economy is not healthy enough for them to secure a job in a competitive market.
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Interest in the youth vote has been so significant during the 2020 election — and especially during the Democratic presidential primary — for various reasons, including the fact that the age range includes the oldest members of Generation Z, a group that began to assert its political voice during 2018′s March for Our Lives, a student-led movement that advocates for legislation that will prevent gun violence. The group surveyed also includes some of the youngest millennials, a group that is now the largest voting bloc by age.
“Young Americans today find themselves on the front lines of the ‘triple crises’ of COVID,” wrote Justin Tseng, who chairs the Harvard Public Opinion Project, a group that conducts a biannual poll examining the political views of voters under 30. “Their education has been disrupted, job prospects falter, and communities experiencing a racial reckoning causing constant concern about their daily livelihoods and the well-being of their friends and their families. … Don’t be surprised when they turn out at the polls in historic numbers.”
Young voters, a group that trends more liberal, did not vote in the primaries at the rates some expected given how vocal they were for some of the more liberal candidates including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass) and Bernie Sanders (I.-Vt.).
The other two cycles when young people were planning to vote in exceptionally large numbers were 2008 and 2018. And both of those years saw higher-than-usual youth turnout, but not as large as this year’s polls seemed to indicate. The 2008 election saw the highest youth turnout since 1984, the earliest census reporting of turnout, with 48.4 percent of 18-to-29 year olds turning out to vote, according to the United States Elections Project.
As polling shows that the gap between former vice president Joe Biden and President Trump is narrowing in some of the swing states that could determine the election, it also suggests that young voters could turn out in November in ways they did not earlier in the primary. The decision to become more involved is unsurprising, student leaders affiliated with Harvard’s IOP said, given the issues young voters are facing more deeply since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Young voters have historically leaned more liberal, and that continues to be the case when it comes to trusting a candidate on the economy. Despite Trump pointing to the economy as one of the main reasons voters should back him, only about a third of young voters trust Trump to improve the economy — which is different from voters overall, especially older voters. More than 42 percent trust Biden to handle the country’s economy best while nearly 1 in 4 trusts neither of the major party candidates.
In a tight presidential race, it is difficult to predict an outcome more than a month away from an election. There are perennial questions about what can be done to motivate young voters in greater numbers. But this survey shows reason to think that turnout will be enough to be significant.
A national poll of 18-to-29 year olds released this week by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that 63 percent of respondents said they will “definitely be voting” in November’s election. The number is a significant increase from the 47 percent who said the same thing before the 2016 presidential election.
And for the first time in the survey’s history, young voters said that the economy is the top issue they’re considering when they head to the polls. Nearly 1 in 4 18-to-29-year-olds consider the economy the No. 1 issue. The pandemic has significantly altered the economy and the job market, including for workers just starting their careers. Some young voters fear that the economy is not healthy enough for them to secure a job in a competitive market.
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Interest in the youth vote has been so significant during the 2020 election — and especially during the Democratic presidential primary — for various reasons, including the fact that the age range includes the oldest members of Generation Z, a group that began to assert its political voice during 2018′s March for Our Lives, a student-led movement that advocates for legislation that will prevent gun violence. The group surveyed also includes some of the youngest millennials, a group that is now the largest voting bloc by age.
“Young Americans today find themselves on the front lines of the ‘triple crises’ of COVID,” wrote Justin Tseng, who chairs the Harvard Public Opinion Project, a group that conducts a biannual poll examining the political views of voters under 30. “Their education has been disrupted, job prospects falter, and communities experiencing a racial reckoning causing constant concern about their daily livelihoods and the well-being of their friends and their families. … Don’t be surprised when they turn out at the polls in historic numbers.”
Young voters, a group that trends more liberal, did not vote in the primaries at the rates some expected given how vocal they were for some of the more liberal candidates including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass) and Bernie Sanders (I.-Vt.).
The other two cycles when young people were planning to vote in exceptionally large numbers were 2008 and 2018. And both of those years saw higher-than-usual youth turnout, but not as large as this year’s polls seemed to indicate. The 2008 election saw the highest youth turnout since 1984, the earliest census reporting of turnout, with 48.4 percent of 18-to-29 year olds turning out to vote, according to the United States Elections Project.
As polling shows that the gap between former vice president Joe Biden and President Trump is narrowing in some of the swing states that could determine the election, it also suggests that young voters could turn out in November in ways they did not earlier in the primary. The decision to become more involved is unsurprising, student leaders affiliated with Harvard’s IOP said, given the issues young voters are facing more deeply since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Young voters have historically leaned more liberal, and that continues to be the case when it comes to trusting a candidate on the economy. Despite Trump pointing to the economy as one of the main reasons voters should back him, only about a third of young voters trust Trump to improve the economy — which is different from voters overall, especially older voters. More than 42 percent trust Biden to handle the country’s economy best while nearly 1 in 4 trusts neither of the major party candidates.
In a tight presidential race, it is difficult to predict an outcome more than a month away from an election. There are perennial questions about what can be done to motivate young voters in greater numbers. But this survey shows reason to think that turnout will be enough to be significant.
