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52 million
Celinda Lake and Mac Heller: “Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters. … Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters. … Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans. … And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes.”
$45 million
A progressive nonprofit funded mainly by Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer is investing $45 million as part of a youth voter turnout campaign ahead of the 2020 election, The Hill reports.
58%
A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll finds 52% of young Americans and 58% of likely general election voters under 30 want President Trump impeached and removed from office. Only 28% of likely voters feel differently.
40%
Washington Post: “College students across the United States more than doubled their rate of voting between the 2014 and 2018 midterm elections, according to a study published Thursday by Tufts University — a dramatic spike in political engagement that could draw unprecedented attention to these voters in next year’s presidential election. … The study found that 40% of students who are eligible to vote cast ballots last year, up from 19% in 2014.”
-12 points
A new Morning Consult survey finds that Sen. Bernie Sanders’s support among voters between the ages of 18 and 29 has dropped from 45% in March to 33% in May.
50%
A new College Reaction survey finds that 50% of college students say they’ll “definitely” vote this year. That includes 57% of Democrats and 40% of Republicans. Axios: “If true, that kind of turnout could help Democrats, since Republican students are more lukewarm about whether they’ll vote. But in reality, young voters aren’t exactly known for rushing to the polls in midterm elections. It would take a sharp break with recent history for that to become a reality.”
35%
A new PRRI/The Atlantic survey finds just 35% of young Americans (ages 18-29), compared to 81% of seniors (ages 65 and older) and 55% of all Americans, say they are absolutely certain to vote in the November midterm elections. Young Americans are also significantly less likely than seniors to say that all their friends are certain to vote (7% vs. 18%).
100,000
“Tom Steyer’s NextGen America organization is working to register 100,000 students in one month at college campuses across 11 states as part of its ‘Welcome Week’ program launching this week,” Axios reports. “This is the group’s biggest voter registration effort yet, focused specifically on the most crucial bloc of non-voters, and it’s happening just three months before the 2018 midterm election.”
$25 million
Amount that Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist who spent millions to help elect Democrats in 2014, is spending to launch a campaign to drive the youth vote in November’s presidential and congressional elections, USA Today reports. “Steyer’s group, NextGen Climate, plans to target students on more than 200 college campuses in seven states that will be election battlegrounds in in November: Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire, Nevada, Illinois and Colorado.”
It is fair to wonder about Clinton’s ability to put the party back together if she does become the nominee. Getting youth turnout is always tricky for Democrats, and Clinton is getting absolutely annihilated with young voters: She lost the youngest group of voters (17-29 in Iowa and 18-29 in New Hampshire) 84%-14% and 83%-16%, respectively. Now, we know that Barack Obama put the party back together fairly easily in 2008, and that if Clinton is the nominee she will be able to use her Republican opponent as a motivational tool. But these are staggeringly lousy numbers for Clinton nonetheless.
