Youth marching to ballot box
Voter registration on rise after multiple school shootings
WASHINGTON — The pace of new voter registrations among young people in crucial states is accelerating, a signal that school shootings this year — and the anger and political organizing in their wake — may prove to be more than ephemeral displays of activism.
They could even help shape the outcome of the midterm elections. If voters in their teens and 20s vote in greater numbers than usual, as many promised during nationwide marches for gun control this spring, the groundswell could affect close races in key states like Arizona and Florida, where there will be competitive races for governor, the Senate and a number of House districts in November.
The deadly shooting Friday at Santa Fe High School in Texas will probably add urgency to the efforts. Hours after the carnage, young organizers mobilized by the February mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., were vowing a political response.
“Santa Fe High, you didn’t deserve this,” Emma González, an organizer from Parkland, posted on Twitter. “You deserve peace all your lives, not just after a tombstone saying that is put over you. You deserve more than Thoughts and Prayers, and after supporting us by walking out we will be there to support you by raising up your voices.”
Their voices have already risen. The question is whether they will vote. Even some Republicans are beginning to believe they will.
“The shooting at Parkland high school was the tipping point for these kids,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster. “The bravery and activism of the Parkland kids ignited their peers across the country, and these newly minted 18-year-old voters are already motivated. The school shooting in Texas surely adds to their resolve but, honestly, they didn’t need any more motivation.”
Voter data for March and April show that young registrants represented a higher portion of new voters in Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, among other states. In Florida, voters younger than 26 jumped from less than 20 percent of new registrants in January and February to nearly 30 percent by March, the month of the gun control rallies. That ticked down to about 25 percent in April, as the demonstrations subsided, but registration of young voters remained above the pace set before 17 students and faculty were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
In North Carolina, voters younger than 25 represented around 30 percent of new registrations in January and February; in March and April, they were around 40 percent.
In Pennsylvania, voter registrations across age groups increased sharply in March and April before the primary last week, but registrations of young voters increased the fastest, jumping to 45 percent in March and more than half in April, from fewer than 40 percent of voters in January and February.
The trend was particularly stark in Broward County, site of the mass shooting in Parkland — and where more than a thousand young people were added to voter rolls in the week leading to the student-led March for Our Lives protests in March. Young voters represented only 16 percent of new registrants in January and February. In March, that number jumped to 46 percent, before slipping back to 25 percent in April.
Registrations among other groups remained relatively constant during the same period, in Broward and in Florida generally, according to data provided by the Florida Department of State Division of Elections.
And those new registrants lean Democratic. Of the new voters ages 25 and younger in the state, a third registered as Democrats; 21 percent signed up as Republicans; and 46 percent registered as either unaffiliated or with another political party. For new registrants older than 25, 27 percent were Democrats; 29 percent were Republicans; and 44 percent were independent or affiliated with a different party.
In addition to the registration figures, new polling of younger voters from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics found a significant jump from two years ago in those who say their involvement will make a difference. Such optimism indicates a voter is more likely to actually turn out.
“What I have seen is what I am calling a once in a generation attitudinal shift about the efficacy of participating in the political process,” said John Della Volpe, director of the institute, who has specialized in polling younger voters for nearly two decades. “I am optimistic that the increasing interest we have tracked in politics will likely lead to increased participation in the midterms.”
The combination of registration data, the Harvard survey and the firepower of the independent groups suggest that younger voters, who typically do not turn out for midterms in great numbers, just might show up at the polls in November.
Others are skeptical. According to research by Michael McDonald of the United States Elections Project, only about 20 percent of voters younger than 30 cast ballots in midterm elections, and Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster, is not betting that this year will be much different.