The youth vote: Why Democrats did so well
Taylor Swift’s music blasted on loudspeakers as volunteers “dished out hot slices of pizza or blankets” to hundreds of University of Michigan students waiting for hours to vote, said Alexander Thompson and Travis Andersen in The Boston Globe. Scenes like this played out across the country, as “the youth vote showed up in force for the midterm elections,” providing a decisive boost for Democrats. “An estimated 27 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 cast ballots across the country,” according to exit polls—“the second-highest mark in a midterm election in almost 30 years.” Turnout was up across all age groups for a midterm election, said Harry Enten in CNN.com. The real difference maker was that Millennials under 30 and members of Gen Z (the oldest of whom are 25) favored House Democratic candidates by a lopsided 28 points. Without those votes, “Democrats would have gotten crushed.”
In key swing states, the youth turnout was about 31 percent, said Brad Polumbo in the New York Post. That was a game changer in Pennsylvania, where Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman won 70 percent of the youth vote. “The biggest single factor” driving Gen Z and Millennials toward Democrats was abortion. “But we can’t ignore the fact” that President Biden “blatantly bribed some young voters to save him from the red wave.”
Just a few months before the election, Biden announced he would unilaterally cancel up to $20,000 in student debt per borrower. This move by executive order was almost certainly unconstitutional, and a federal appeals court blocked it this week. Duping young voters was politically effective but “deeply cynical.”
Conservatives are being sore losers, said Kelly Weill in The Daily Beast. After the supposed red wave turned into a trickle, Fox News commentator Jesse Watters said young voters had been “totally brainwashed” by leftist teachers. Some conservatives even called for the minimum voting age to be raised from 18 to 21 or even to 28. Sorry, Republicans, said Will Bunch in The Philadelphia Inquirer, young Americans heard your message loud and clear, and were “shocked into action.” Losing their reproductive rights angered them, and election denial disgusted them. “The flame of the American Experiment was not extinguished,” despite Republicans’ best efforts. “Instead, the torch was passed to a new generation.”