Poll: Young people seeking younger leaders

WASHINGTON >> Young people are looking for a change this election season — a generational change.

A poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV found that most Americans ages 15 to 34 think voting in the midterm elections gives their generation some say about how the government is run, and 79 percent of this group say leaders from their generation would do a better job running the country.

The poll found young people eager to vote for someone who shared their political views on issues like health care and immigration policy. They expressed far less excitement about voting for a candidate described as a lifelong politician.

“These older Congress people, they don’t understand the internet and they don’t know what they’re talking about,” said Greg Davis, a 29-year-old from Grandview, Ohio, who says he watched in exasperation last spring as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg easily handled what was supposed to be a Senate grilling on privacy policy. “The questions that he was getting asked about security and privacy were asinine. We need leadership that actually understands tech.”

It’s true that the current Congress is among the oldest in U.S. history. At the beginning of the 115th Congress in January 2017, the average age of House members was nearly 58. The average age of senators was nearly 62, among the oldest, according to the Congressional Research Service.

About two-thirds of the young people in the poll say they are extremely or very excited to vote for a candidate who cares about the issues that affect them and their generation.