They swung toward Trump, despite Biden winning with young voters
Kamala Harris vs. Joe Biden: The Early Results from Pre-election Polls Could Explain What We Saw Tuesday Night
Those pre-election polling numbers may explain some of what we saw Tuesday night. Kamala Harris is far more youthful than Joe Biden. In early exit polls, it appears she suffered a decline in vote count among voters under the age of 30 compared to Mr. Biden. According to CNN, she did worse than Mr. Biden among Black voters. One exit poll, from Fox News and The Associated Press, suggests she did significantly worse.
Why did the Arab American voter feel uncomfortable about voting for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election? Israel’s war, Gaza’s destruction, and Palestine’s slaughter
But viewing Gaza’s political repercussions merely through the lens of identity misses something fundamental. One of the greatest hikes in progressive activism in a generation can be found over the past year, after Israel slaughtered and fed the Palestinians. Many Americans roused to action by their government’s complicity in Gaza’s destruction have no personal connection to Palestine or Israel. Like many Americans who protested South African apartheid or the Vietnam War, their motive is not ethnic or religious. It is moral.
During the presidential campaign, journalists trying to assess the electoral impact of Israel’s war in Gaza often focused on Arab and Muslim voters, particularly in Michigan. That is understandable. In the heavily Arab American city of Dearborn, Mich., which supported Joe Biden in 2020, results show that Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris by about six percentage points.
He said that the vibe was more related to the Harris campaign. “For an entire campaign that was built on vibes, they certainly didn’t read the room.”
They just want to live in the same country as their parents. I don’t know if that’s a social issue or an economic issue,” he said. They aspire to a nice life, and feel that it is slipping away.
The Trump campaign hired several groups to run its grassroots organizing work, and one of them was Turning Point, which does not have a youth-only focus.
“The goal was, of course, to lose by less,” said Kirk, whose organization focuses on getting young people engaged in conservative politics. We were whispering to each other that there was something bigger.
Unpacking the 2020-2024 Young Vote Heheres What We Know So Far: How Biden and Trump Won Big with Young People
He joined TikTok in the summer and grew his followers by over a million, to 14 million, beating Harris who has 5 million followers. Trump also did a number of extended interviews on some of the top podcasts in the country, many popular among young men.
Biden was falling in the polls before he dropped out of the presidential race. She saw a boost in support after Harris took over the ticket. It’s something the campaign tried to channel moving forward, both online and in person, which included embracing the viral meme culture around her candidacy.
In past years, voters under 30 have proved essential on the margins, especially for Democrats, where even minimal shifts in support can decide an election.
Vice President Harris hoped that it would be part of her winning coalition this year. Instead, she underperformed, and President-elect Trump made gains.
Harris did not achieve that threshold, despite getting over fifty percent of the votes from young people, according to exit polls.
It was a loss especially pronounced in the blue wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – where the vice president’s margins dropped significantly from President Biden’s commanding leads four years ago.
Michigan experienced the most significant change. Harris and Trump received equal shares – 49% to 49% – of youth support in the state, a sobering 24-point drop from 2020.
John was involved with Biden’s 2020 campaign as a volunteer and has studied youth politics for two decades. He argued the election results point to disconnects in how Harris appealed to young people on issues – notably around the economy.
“From the earliest focus groups I conducted this year, there was this innate sense that younger people’s personal finances were better and would be better under a Trump administration,” said Della Volpe, who serves as the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
The young men of the Democratic Party aren’t listening to the American people – why we don’t care about it, but why we can’t ‘talk to them’
Harris made protecting access to abortion a central part of her campaign. It’s an issue that has galvanized young voters to turn out for Democrats in recent elections.
The issue of abortion is more important to voters under 30 than the economy and jobs, according to early data from the Associated Press.
To Della Volpe, it’s part of a trend he has been watching for years, where a significant number of young men, especially those who have grown up with Trump, feel disconnected from the modern Democratic Party.
They’re telling us in surveys that the Democratic Party doesn’t speak to them. They’re choosing not to be affiliated with it. He said that it can’t be turned around in 30 days or 100 days. Years of investment are required to do this. Donald Trump made an investment. The Democrats were seeding much of that playing field.
