Young people key in November, but dislike choices
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – President Joe Biden should have a lock on Viviana Ramos’ vote. She’s a liberal young woman from an immigrant family working a service-industry job that keeps her living paycheck to paycheck, worried about climate change, health care, the cost of college and buying a house.
But Biden may not get her vote in November.
Ramos, 24, voted for him in 2020 but is now unsure whether she can bring herself to support him again, even if it means a second presidency for Donald Trump, whom she dislikes even more.
“That fuels the rage. It’s really disheartening. I have a moral battle with myself: Do I even vote this time around? I don’t want to have to choose between them. One is slightly worse than the other. It’s horrible,” said Ramos, who works at a coffee shop inside downtown Chattanooga’s historic train station.
Ramos is one of many young voters stewing with grievances over the country’s future, from the existential crisis of climate change to the frustration over inflation, reproductive rights, high interest rates, Israel’s war in Gaza, immigration reform and the power corporations have over their working conditions.
Experts say young voters nationally may ultimately decide this 2024 presidential race. In 2016, young voters helped Trump claim victory by either staying home or choosing a third-party candidate. And in 2020 they helped Biden win by turning out in near-record numbers and skipping third-party options.
“I usually judge people if they don’t vote. But this is the first election where I understand if you don’t want to vote,” said Knoxville resident Kathika Seneviratne, 25. “I’m just stuck.”
Turned off by both parties
In 2016, nearly 40% of young voters cast ballots, rising to 50% in 2020, according to the nonpartisan Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University in Massachusetts. Although young voters are typically less likely to identify as Republican or Democrat, they are also more likely to vote for Democratic candidates.
Today, polls show Biden has weak support among young voters, and that while 26% of Americans overall have a negative view of both Trump and Biden, a significantly larger 41% of young voters dislike both, according to a poll by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Many young liberal voters say they understand that Biden’s reelection depends heavily on their support, and hope his campaign and administration begins addressing their concerns more forcefully. They’re well aware that if they don’t give Biden their vote, Trump will more easily win.
Kristian Mansel, 23, said she’s willing to see a Trump victory if it means Biden and the Democratic Party learn a lesson. She’s angry that Biden and Democrats have failed to protect reproductive rights or wipe out student loans.
“It’s just there’s too many strikes against him and the Democratic Party at this point in general,” said Mansel, a University of Memphis student who considers herself liberal.
In 2020, Trump beat Biden in Tennessee by about 700,000 votes, but more than 1 million eligible voters – most of them young people – didn’t participate.
Overall, 66% of Americans voted in the 2020 presidential election, with turnout the highest – about 76% – among ages 64-74. Experts say high turnout gives elections more credibility because the results more closely mirror what the majority of people want.
“It feels like the older generation is still in charge, and there are such huge differences in our experiences,” said Jeremy Gold, 30, of Nashville.
“We feel like we’ve been ripped off by the ‘American dream’ idea. We’ve seen the financial repercussions of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations multiple times over, seen a lot more violence and war than we were originally told would happen, and we feel ripped off,” he said. “The lack of voting is probably a little bit of a middle finger to those who passed that to us.”
Combating low turnout
In 2020, Tennessee’s youth turnout was among the lowest in the nation at 43%, well below the national youth voting average of 50%. And in the 2022 midterm elections, Tennessee had the country’s worst youth voter turnout at just 12.7%.
Some voting rights groups say young voters often feel disillusioned because lawmakers suppress their participation. In Tennessee, for instance, the state won’t accept a college ID as proper identification at the polls, but will accept a firearms registration card.
Other examples: limiting polling places on college campuses, blocking same-day voter registration and requiring that voting registration be done via “wet” signature – a hand-written signature signed in pen and mailed in or hand-delivered to registration officials. All of this seems very last-century to people who’ve grown up in the digital age.
“We all know young people like to do everything on their phones,” said Andrea Hailey of the nonpartisan voter participation group Vote.org. “All of that is meant to wash young people out of the system.”
Like many voting-advocacy groups, Vote.org tries to help young voters understand that their voices matter. And there are indications it’s working.
With help from influencers like pop superstar Taylor Swift, who lives in Tennessee, Vote.org this election cycle has already seen twice as many 18-year-olds register to vote nationally than it did by this time in 2020. Hailey said she doesn’t buy the idea that young voters are disillusioned.
“If what we’re seeing holds true, that means the youngest cohort is planning to show up,” Hailey said. “They have a vision for the world they want to see.”
After an Instagram post by Swift last September, a record of more than 30,000 people signed up through Vote.org during National Voter Registration Day, many of them teens who will be eligible to vote in this fall’s election. Hailey said about 80% of the people who sign