Data from the Harvard Youth Poll obtained by the Washington Post's Greg Sargent should terrify MAGA Republicans as we move into the 2024 elections and beyond. Starting in the 2018 mid-term elections, the youth vote (18 - 29 year olds) came out in substantial numbers for Democrats and denied Republicans control of Congress. Likewise in 2020 and the 2022 mid-terms, the youth vote proved a powerful force for the Democrats, who echoed their views on women's reproductive rights, gun safety, climate change, and economic inequality. From Sargent's report:
"John Della Volpe, director of the poll, refers to those issues as the “big four.” They all speak to the sense of precarity that young voters feel about their physical safety, their economic future, their basic rights and even the ecological stability of the planet.
'This generation has never felt secure — personally, physically, financially,' Della Volpe told me. [snip]
Sizable majorities now reject the idea that same-sex relationships are morally wrong (53 percent), support stricter gun laws (63 percent) and want government to provide basic necessities (62 percent).
Meanwhile, support for government doing more to curb climate change soared to 57 percent in 2020 before subsiding to 50 percent this year. That small dip may reflect preoccupation with economic doldrums unleashed by covid-19. While that 50 percent could be higher, the issue has seen a 21-point shift, and the polling question asks if respondents want action on climate 'even at the expense of economic growth.'
Many of today’s 18-to-29-year-olds, who are mostly older Gen Z Americans plus the tail end of the Millennial generation, lived their formative years during the Great Recession and the election of Trump. What’s more, these new voters are politically coming of age during a remarkable confluence of events that appear to be conspiring in an improbable way to push them to the left." (our emphasis)
This explains why Republican-controlled legislatures are feverishly devising ways to suppress the youth vote, from voter ID requirements to restrictions on college students voting in their college towns. They know their only hope is to keep as much of this demographic from voting as possible, rather than moderate their radical right-wing positions on the "big four" issues. Dems need to focus on making sure those attempts fail, and that they get the youth vote out in coming elections.
