Youth turnout could save, or sink, Democrats in 2022
“If you accept the status quo with young people, it’s not going to go great,” says Democratic pollster Ben Tulchin. “Turnout is not going to be good.”
“We are seeing that younger voters who were voting in some of these elections because of Trump don’t seem to be inspired by Biden, and I think their turnout will fall back to traditional levels,” says GOP consultant John Brabender.
Some structural dynamics may help to sustain youth turnout this fall. Many experts note that the large youth turnout of 2018 and 2020 creates momentum for continued participation, because people who register and vote in one election are more likely to vote in the next. Over the past two elections, Democrats and nonpartisan groups have built a significant organizational infrastructure to engage more young voters, and those efforts are continuing through 2022.
Yet many strategists focusing on the youth vote agree that these factors may not be enough to prevent a significant fall-off without changes in the political environment. One key for Democrats will be finding ways to raise the visibility of Trump, who was deeply unpopular with the youngest voters. Even more important may be Biden finding ways to generate more progress than he has so far on issues important to younger generations, particularly combating climate change and reducing the burden of student debt.
“My stern warning to the Biden administration and Democrats is you have to take this seriously, because if we do go back to a 2010 or 2014 model where they really fall off it’s going to make it very difficult for us in November,” says Tulchin, who served as the pollster for Bernie Sanders during the 2020 primary campaign, when the senator from Vermont dominated Biden among younger voters.
A coming shift in electoral power
Inexorably, the balance of electoral power is shifting toward these younger generations. William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, told me that he projects about 17 million young people will turn 18 between the 2020 and 2024 elections, and that fully 49% of them will be kids of color. Simultaneously, more of the predominantly White baby boomers and members of the Silent Generation are aging out of the electorate.
But the electoral impact of these demographic shifts has been diluted by low turnout among younger voters — a problem that has been especially acute in midterm elections.
“We have seen two important election cycles in a row where young people have been leading,” says Abby Kiesa, CIRCLE’s deputy director.
The enthusiasm factor
Almost everyone working with young voters agrees it will be challenging to replicate the turnout surges of 2018 and 2020. But most also say it’s too early to concede that a decline is inevitable, especially to the very low levels of the 2014 and 2010 midterms, when Republicans made enormous gains.
“There is still time to impact them,” says Tulchin. “We are not locked in from here to November.”
The biggest asset for those working to nudge younger voters to the polls is that so many of them have voted in the recent past. Prior registration and voting are among the best predictors of future participation.
Kiesa says that while the current political climate is unlikely to generate record turnout among young people, neither does she believe that Biden’s lagging approval rating with them…
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