Will Younger Voters Turn Out?

April 1, 2022

By: Alan Greenblatt

Will Younger Voters Turn Out?: Voters under the age of 30 headed to the polls in much higher numbers in 2018 and 2020 than they had in prior elections, helping propel Democrats to victories in Congress and the presidency. Their lack of enthusiasm this year is one of the Democrats’ major headaches.

President Biden’s poll numbers are poor generally but have sunk like a stone among the young. Shortly after taking office last year, Biden enjoyed approval from 70 percent of voters under 30, according to CBS News polling. By the beginning of this year, only 42 percent approved. That’s a much bigger decline than Biden has seen among other age groups.

Younger voters are more likely to be persons of color and identify as LGBTQ+ and less likely to attend church regularly than older generations. They are also more likely to support Democrats. Biden took more than 60 percent of the youth vote in 2020 against President Donald Trump, according to exit polls. Democrats did even better among the young in the 2018 elections. Both those elections saw big increases in youth voting over the previous midterm and presidential elections in 2014 and 2016.

Read more here.