{"id":1259949,"date":"2023-12-22T13:10:55","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T12:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/?post_type=articles&p=1259949"},"modified":"2023-12-22T13:10:55","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T12:10:55","slug":"for-bidens-younger-voters-the-thrill-is-close-to-gone","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/articles\/for-bidens-younger-voters-the-thrill-is-close-to-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"For Biden\u2019s Younger Voters, The Thrill Is (Close to) Gone"},"featured_media":1259950,"template":"","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[]},"schools":[],"areas":[448],"subjects":[419],"class_list":["post-1259949","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","areas-us-elections","subjects-global-affairs"],"custom-fields":{"wpcf-article-leadin":["The young Americans who were pivotal in Biden's 2020 victory are now reconsidering their support due to dissatisfaction, and their lack of attachment with the president should be a warning sign for Democrats, writes Alana Moceri."],"wpcf-article-body":["After baseball, the great American pastime is the battle of the generations. The national fixation on generational differences is so intense that we name them, argue over the years that delimitate them<\/a>, and \u2013 most of all \u2013 we stereotype them. The out-of-touch Silent Generation, the selfish Baby Boomers, the cynical and disaffected Gen-Xers, the entitled and lazy Millennials, and the technology-addicted Gen-Z. Yet, despite the snark, studying generational and other demographic trends helps political strategists build winning campaigns.\r\n\r\nAs we approach 2024, understanding young Americans\u2019 values \u2013 the so-called Millennials and Gen-Z \u2013 will be a critical piece of either a Biden or Trump victory<\/a>. Recent polling shows that these generational voters who supported Biden in 2020 are no longer thrilled with his administration and are taking another look at Trump \u2013 to the point of even considering casting their vote for him in the general election.\r\n\r\nIt may seem like a lot to ask of an octogenarian from the Silent Generation to woo young voters. Past generations have been favored by inspirational candidates closer to their peer group: Baby Boomers had Kennedy, Gen-Xers had Clinton, and the Millennials had Obama. Perhaps Gen Z\u2019s inspirational candidate will emerge in 2028, at a time when they (plus Millennials) will make up the country\u2019s largest voting bloc<\/a>. But for now, we\u2019re all \u2013 young and old \u2013 stuck with a d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu election.\r\n\r\nBut let\u2019s remember that U.S. presidential campaigns are all about the big wide voting coalitions. Bernie Sanders did well among young voters despite his age and, in fact, the Millennials and Gen-Zers who could vote in 2020 were a key part of Biden\u2019s victory. According to Catalist<\/a>, these generations represented 31% of the electorate in 2020<\/a>, up from 23% in 2016 and just 14% in 2008. More importantly, they turned out to vote at a record rate of 50%, an 11-point improvement<\/a> over 2016 and what is probably the highest youth turnout since the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18 in 1969. This is significant because the age-old problem of campaigns is getting young people \u2013 especially those without university educations \u2013 to vote.\r\n\r\nIn the case of 2020, fear of a second Trump administration was enough to mobilize half of young voters \u2013 and they went for Biden by a 20-point margin<\/a>. Along with women, Black and Latino voters, and the university-educated, it was the youth who were (and are still) a critical part of Biden\u2019s coalition of voters. Looking towards a future with more Gen Z voters, 2020 seemed like the beginning of the end for Trump and his MAGA brethren. Atlantic<\/em> writer and CNN analyst Ron Brownstein gushed that<\/a>, \u201cthe coming generational backlash against Donald Trump may represent only the first tremor in a much larger earthquake threatening the GOP through the 2020s.\u201d\r\n
American youth prefer their country to focus on its problems at home.<\/blockquote>\r\nBut recent polls say otherwise. Young Americans who reliably vote Democratic are not loving Biden. The New York Times<\/em>\/Sienna College poll<\/a> of swing states came out in early November showing Trump ahead of Biden in five of the six swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Biden held a lead in Wisconsin. In 2020, he won all these states. Even a year out, losing to Trump by ten points in a diverse state like Nevada is enough to take any Democrat\u2019s breath away. But a one-point loss to Trump among people under 30 is much worse \u2013 for Democrats it is the stuff of panic attacks. Then, a late-November NBC News poll<\/a>\u00a0revealed that Trump was leading Biden 46% to 42% among voters aged 18 to 34, compared to an earlier poll that showed Biden leading Trump by a similar margin in June and September.\r\n\r\nThe clearest and most immediate reason why young people are turning away from Biden is his handling of the Israel-Hamas War. This war is hurting Biden\u2019s approval ratings across the board, but it is especially costing him support among young people. A recent Pew report shows that, overall, 41% of Americans disapprove<\/a> of the Biden Administration\u2019s handling of the conflict, as do 46% of those under 30 years old. But the difference lies in the intensity of this disapproval: 26% of 18 to 29-year-olds \u201cstrongly disapprove\u201d compared with 21% of 30 to 49-year-olds, 19% of 50 to 64-year-olds, and only 17% of those 65 and over. Furthermore, an NBC poll found that a whopping 70% of 18 to 34-year-olds disapprove<\/a> of Biden\u2019s handling of the conflict.\r\n\r\nAmericans under 30 have a different view on who is to blame<\/a>. While 62% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans believe that Hamas has \u201ca lot\u201d of responsibility for the current war, that figure falls to 44% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans under 30. While Republicans are more united behind Israel with only 21% seeing Israel as having \u201ca lot\u201d of responsibility while 50% of Democrats are of that opinion. That figure rises to 55% of Democrats under 30. It\u2019s worth noting here that about 20-25% of people across all age groups and ideologies just simply don\u2019t know.\r\n\r\nFifty-two percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 said that they were more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis, according to a Quinnipiac University poll<\/a>\u00a0from early November. What\u2019s striking \u2013 but not entirely surprising \u2013 is the sharp reversal from the results of the poll taken just after the October 7 assault, when 41% of young people sympathized with Israelis compared with the 26% who sympathized with Palestinians.\r\n\r\nWhen asked by NBC<\/a> why he disapproves of Biden\u2019s job performance, Zico Schell, a 23-year-old Democrat from San Diego cited \u201cFailed promises, student loans, foreign policy in general.\u201d This criticism is despite the fact that the administration has done its level best on student loans, offering $132 billion worth of loan forgiveness despite the Supreme Court\u2019s blocking of his student debt cancellation plan. But voting and elections aren\u2019t about the facts, but about emotions and perceptions.\r\n\r\nThis younger generation is deeply concerned about the climate crisis, and alarmed at the growing lack of reproductive rights in the United States after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade last year. They have been traumatized by school shootings and, even if they haven\u2019t experienced a shooting directly, have been subject to shooter drills in their schools. So, it\u2019s not all that surprising that they are less interested than older generations in trying to solve the world\u2019s problems when there are so many to tackle at home. In fact, a Pew Research report on how young people in the U.S., the U.K., France, and Germany want their countries to engage<\/a> with the world found that while 18\u201329-year-olds, including those in the US, are the most optimistic that international action can reduce the effects of climate change, American youth prefer their country to focus on its problems at home rather than be active in world affairs.\r\n\r\nTrump is loath to engage with the world and thus might very well have an opening with these voters \u2013 except that his and his party\u2019s stance is even more firmly behind Israel than the Democrats. (Not to mention the uncertainties in store for him thanks to multiple jury trials in 2024.) So, time is, ironically, on the side of 81-year-old Biden. Plus, a lot can happen in a year as our attention gets diverted from one crisis to the next. Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates<\/a> believes that Biden can bring back young voters since \u201cThese are people who have a proven track record in voting for Biden and Democrats.\u201d\r\n\r\nFinally, there\u2019s the truth that Democrats are never as happy with their presidents as they are with their candidates. Last election, Biden was a \u201cour best bet to beat Trump,\u201d not a \u201cwe\u2019re in love with him\u201d candidate. So, even if young people come around to seeing Biden as the least bad choice as the specter of a second Trump presidency becomes clearer, that doesn\u2019t mean they will turn out to vote in the record numbers that they did in 2020. That should be keeping Democrats up at night.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nA version of this article also ran in Spanish on <\/em>esglobal.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>\r\n\r\n\u00a9 IE Insights."],"wpcf-audio-article":["https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/After-baseball-the-great-American-pastime-is-the-battle-of-the-generations.-The-national-fixation.mp3"],"wpcf-article-extract":["The young Americans who were pivotal in Biden's 2020 victory are now reconsidering their support due to dissatisfaction, and their lack of attachment with the president should be a warning sign for Democrats, writes Alana Moceri."],"wpcf-article-extract-enable":["1"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/1259949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1259950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1259949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"schools","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schools?post=1259949"},{"taxonomy":"areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/areas?post=1259949"},{"taxonomy":"subjects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/subjects?post=1259949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}