With six weeks until election day, the Harris-Walz campaign is in a final sprint to the polls attempting to win over every voter possible. Nowhere is this more clear than in the campaign’s efforts to win young voters. The Harris campaign announced that they would focus on reaching out to students across 150 campuses in the most important swing states. Other youth groups who have officially partnered with the Harris-Walz campaign have dedicated themselves to calling students across the country. All of these tremendous efforts to mobilize young students only begs one question: What about young voters who don’t go to college?
Many of today’s young leaders cut their teeth working within the party can be traced back to the March For Our Lives organization, a group that was founded to advance gun safety reforms in response to the Parkland shooting of 2018. Some March For Our Lives alumni demonstrate the newest generation of youth activist leaders such as: Representative Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.); David Hogg, president of Leaders We Deserve PAC; and Eve Levenson, the Harris Campaign youth director, all of whom learned their organizing strategy from March For Our Lives.
The reason this distinction matters is that activists who learned from March For Our Lives have shown a clear preference for organizing at either high schools or university campuses. This makes sense since their first action was the Walkout For Our Lives, inspiring students to walk out of class in response to the lack of any action taken to prevent school shootings. When it comes to Get Out The Vote, efforts during an election are the rational path to take. College voters are much more likely to vote Democratic than any other group within the 18-29 demographic. According to a recent poll conducted by Blueprint in May, 50% of college students consider themselves to be liberal as opposed to 36% who consider themselves to be conservative and only 14% who consider themselves to be moderate. Groups like Voters of Tomorrow and NextGen America are taking the lead on mobilizing these voters with days dedicated to calling students or tabling on campuses.
Yet, this strategy leaves wide gaps in the 18-29 demographic. With only 25.8% of the 18-29 demographic actually enrolled in higher education in 2022, there is a massive amount of young Americans who are simply being ignored by these groups. Approximately 39 million, in fact. If we take the focus off of what most people assume young voters are, far-left and attending a 4-year university, the young voter begins to look like most other voter demographics. For all voters aged 18-29, 36% describe themselves as liberal, a drastic 14-point decrease from college voters, and 31% describe themselves as moderates, another drastic 16% change. A recent poll from NBC highlights that their priorities are much the same as any other voter. By far the largest issue among Gen Z and Millennial voters is inflation and the cost of living, with 31% saying that this is their top issue. No other issue comes close to this level of importance with protecting democracy coming in second with 11% and abortion following close behind with 9%.
There are groups that have broken through the youth vote without focusing primarily on voters on college campuses. Groups like the Center for New Liberalism (CNL) and activists like Olivia Juliana have taken the lead on advocating for policies that appeal to the much broader youth vote. These activists understand that pragmatic policies that address the cost of living for young voters will be key to securing their support for the 2024 Presidential election. The Harris-Walz campaign also realizes this and has been promoting policies that will actually help all young Americans. Chief among them is Harris’ new policy proposal to build 3 million new houses, which will help drive down prices and allow more young Americans to enter the housing market. The rising cost of rent and homeownership is one of the most burdensome costs for young people, and Harris’ new efforts to address it are providing much-needed homes to the 64% of young voters who currently believe that owning their own home will be much more difficult than it was for their parents.
Simple math also explains why the Harris-Walz campaign needs to broaden its outreach to different kinds of young voters. John Della Volpe, the Harvard Institute of Politics Polling Director, has argued that the winning number for a Democratic Presidential candidate is 60% of the youth vote. Yet, the most recent poll of the 18-29 demographic conducted by NBC News has only 50% of young voters choosing Vice President Harris, and only 34% support Donald Trump.
The Harris-Walz campaign and associated youth advocacy groups have done an incredible job tapping into young, progressive, college voters. But if the campaign wants to reach the critical 60% of the youth vote, they will need to step outside their comfort zone and talk to the tens of millions of Gen Z and Millennial voters who are primarily focused on their economic well-being and their future.
