Why the U.S. has totally underestimated youth voters
3.9.2016
Fifty years ago being a good citizen meant reading the newspaper and watching the news to stay informed, supporting your political party, and voting in every election. Today it means everything from volunteering to sharing your views on social media to persuading other people to become politically engaged or share your views. And, yes, voting.
“Nowadays it’s do-it-yourself citizenship,” says Kristi Anderson, professor of political science at Syracuse University. “People see that they have a lot of choice about how to be a good citizen and participate in politics. It isn’t so cut and dried anymore.”
But the definition of political engagement is no longer so rigid. We don’t need to get all of our information from the newspaper or TV. We live-stream Donald Trump’s rallies, read Bernie Sanders’ policy thoughts on Twitter, watch behind-the-scenes footage of the GOP debate on Snapchat, and see snippets of Hillary Clinton’s campaign trail on Instagram. This generation wants to do more than just vote; we want to have just as much say on policies and issues as our parents and grandparents. We want our opinions to be validated.
“Social media is one way, what some researchers call online participatory politics, where young people are having a voice, having an impact,” Abby Kiesa, youth coordinator and researcher at the Center for Information on Research and Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), told WHYY Public Media in an April 21 podcast. “They’re impacting conversations and what issues politicians are talking about in addition to the fact that there’s more equality of that engagement.”
And while political engagement is increasing, there is still a very real problem: too many people are talking the talk and not walking the walk. Though more and more people are using social media platforms to discuss politics, voting numbers are not increasing at the same rates.
More than 10,000 people have shared a recent Politico article that states we all know the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, and 292,000 people have tweeted praise or criticisms of Clinton, but not all these people will actually head to the polls to vote. Part of this disparity may come from the fact that most social media users are young people.
According to a study by the Pew Research Center, 18-to-29-year-olds use social media in the greatest numbers, at 90 percent, compared with 77 percent of Gen-Xers and 51 percent of baby boomers. And yet they continuously have the lowest turn out rate of any age demographic – in 2012 they had a turnout rate of 40.5 percent, compared with 56.2 percent of 30-44 year-olds, 66 percent of 45-59 year-olds, and 71.2 percent of those 60 and older.
This is not a new trend. Time and time again those age 30 and under have been considered an unreliable voter group because of low registration and voting numbers and lack of absentee ballots.
Part of this may be due to the fact [HB6] that college students need to register based on place of residence. However, “place of residence” isn’t so clear for college students. Some states let students register to vote in the same state where they go to school since they live there for most of the year. But students who are allowed to vote in their school state often don’t because there are no voting booths nearby. Other states require them to register with their parents’ home address and fill out an absentee ballot for their home state.
The voting problem persists after college, as post-grads try to settle down and establish a career. Most Americans’ lives remain unsettled in their 20s, with about a third moving every year, holding on average 7 jobs over the course of a decade, and marrying at a later age than previous generations. Voting is habit-forming, meaning that once you vote you’re more likely to vote again. But if you’re constantly moving and changing , it’s hard to form that habit. With each new move you need to re-register to vote, find your new polling station, and, if you cross state lines, make sure you have the right identification on Election Day.
Not to mention that since 2008, states across the country have passed voter suppression laws that make it harder for Americans—especially minorities, old people, students, and people with disabilities—to vote. These measures include cuts to early voting, requiring voters to carry appropriate IDs to their polling station, and voter caging, meaning challenging the registration status of voters and questioning the legality of allowing them to vote.
But in this year’s election we may see a shift. According to a Feb. 15 article in the Wall Street Journal, this is the first presidential election in which people age 18 to 29 make up the same proportion of the electorate — 30 percent — as Baby Boomers. So far, the youth turnout for this year’s primaries rivals that of 2008, Barack Obama’s first election, in which much of his success was due to the youth vote.
“Our estimates suggest that in the 2016 primaries and caucuses so far, we’ve seen records broken in almost every state. Up until about mid-March most of those records were fueled by the Republican youth turnout,” Kiesa told WHYY. “After mid-March, we saw more and more young people participate in the Democratic primaries.”
The younger demographic has always been a tough group to motivate, whether because of reactions to politicians , a disconnection on policies and issues, or just a general lack of concern about politics. In 2008, Obama promised change to our country and was able to motivate young voters. This year we are seeing Bernie Sanders do the same with proposed policies on single-payer health care , free higher education, increased minimum wage, and criminal justice reform – all issues millennials truly care about.
“What really distinguishes the era we live in today, in which young people turn out in relatively good numbers in presidential elections but turn out in low numbers in congressional elections, from the 19th century is sustained engagement,” Jon Grinspan, author of The Virgin Vote: How Young American Made Democracy, Social, Politics Personal and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century, told WHYY. “Youth is temporary. All young people grow up. And so no matter how well one campaign engages young people, no matter how charismatic a personality is or how important an issue is, if we can’t pass down that sustained engagement from young people to young people over time, those voters will grow up and they will cease being young voters pretty soon[HB18] .”
Some millenials are called to action to keep the man who is probably the most narcissistic, sexist, racist political candidate we have ever had from being elected – we’re looking at you, Trump. The millennial generation has lived in an era that has fought for equality for all genders, races, and sexualities, and they don’t like the fact that Trump’s ideologies seem like they’re stuck in the past. “We have not seen young people who are participating in the Republican primaries so far really rally around a candidate,” Kiesa told WHYY . “At first there were so many candidates that was tough to do, but now we’re down to three candidates we’re still not seeing young people rally around one and they’re certainly not rallying around Donald Trump.” So while Trump may be the GOP candidate with the highest percentage of young voters – 26 percent – some 74 percent of Republican youth voters would still rather vote for another candidate.
The real question will come if Bernie doesn’t make the ticket: which way will the youth vote? Will they vote at all? If Clinton and Trump, the two frontrunners for the GOP and Democratic nominations, receive their parties’ nominations, the direction of the youth vote becomes unclear.
Neither Clinton nor Trump have generated enthusiasm among millennial voters, with Clinton holding 37 percent of the youth vote for the Democratic party and Trump holding only 26 percent for the Republican party. Sanders has the potential to win if he runs as an independent candidate, but it’s still a big question mark what he will do if Clinton wins the nomination.
A USA Today poll predicts that in a Clinton v. Trump race this November, voters 35 and under are substantially more likely to vote for Clinton — 52 percent for Clinton and 19 percent for Trump. If they decide to vote at all. In the same poll, one in five millennials say they would stay home on Election Day. If either candidate expects to win, they need to channel some of the energy Sanders has managed to evoke from his young supporters.
But that's not so simple. Neither candidate can just win over youth voters by shouting promises or pushing their experience. They need to find a way to connect to millennials and create a conversation.
Today we have more independent voters than ever, even across all age ranges; according to the Pew Research Center, in 2014, 39 percent of voters called themselves independents, 32 percent identified as Democrats and 23 percent as Republicans. In order to capture some of those voters, Trump and Hillary need to understand the worries of millennials and offer substantive policies that appeal to their concerns.
“Young people in a way are the ideal voters – they care more about issues than older voters, they care less about personality and age than older voters,” says Grinspan. “People need to identify themselves with politics. We need to make it less of a civic duty and more of something social – something close to personal lives.”
Candidates aren’t the only ones who need to step up their games, though . Communities play a role in the voting habits of young voters; the more people are involved in their communities, the more likely they are to vote. So joining community organizations — whether they are service, social, or athletic — talking to older people who already have voting habits established, and making politics part of our everyday conversations can help get young people to the polls.
“We need more stakeholders to come together and think together about how each different organization, each different sector, can play a unique role in supporting young people and others to have a voice in their community, be it schools through civic education, be it parents through discussion in their household ,” says Kiesa.
With seven months left until the election, it looks like everyone has a lot of work to do. “Young people are influencing issues, influencing what politicians and leaders are talking about,” says Kiesa. “So we should focus on voting but we should also broaden the definition to understand the breadth of youth impact on these conversations.”
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