Young People Shifted Toward Trump in 2024 – But…

We know by now that young voters shifted significantly toward the right in 2024, a non-surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the rising cost of living, scarcity of jobs, porous border and the Democrats’ reluctance to put the American people first.  

Estimates show that young people voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris over President Donald Trump by a mere four percentage points – 51 percent to 47 percent. This is a massive decline for Democrats compared to 2020 when Biden beat Trump by 25 points with young people.  

That said, a new survey of over 2,000 young people 18-34 from Tuft University’s CIRCLE reveals that while young voters shifted significantly toward the right, a vast number of eligible young people sat out the 2024 election.

Young people with the largest economic struggles in their personal lives, and the greatest concern over the cost of living, were most likely to sit out the 2024 election, according to the data.

CIRCLE’s early estimate is that youth participation dropped as much as eight points, from 50 percent in 2020 to an estimated 42 percent in 2024.

Young voters made up a smaller share of the electorate in 2024 as well. CIRCLE estimates that young people cast 14 percent of ballots in the 2024 election, down from 17 percent of ballots in 2020 and 19 percent in 2016.

Young people did shift toward the right, but there is still a steady decline in voter participation, and digging into the reasons for the decline will be essential for campaigns to understand in the next election cycle.

Looking at the group of eligible young people who sat out the election, it appears there were several reasons for their reluctance to cast a vote in November. The most common explanation given was that they did not vote because they did not like any of the candidates, with 24 percent of young non-voters saying they didn’t vote because they didn’t like the candidates.

Digging deeper however, there is a strong correlation between economic hardship, and being part of the non-voter pool.  

According to CIRCLE, a vast number of eligible young people who sat out the election fall into the category of significant hardship, in addition to reporting not being contacted by political campaigns.   

Young people who did not vote strongly prioritized the cost of living. Those who did not vote prioritized the cost of living 14 percentage points more than youth who did vote, with 75 percent of young people who did not vote saying the cost of living was a major concern to them compared to 61 percent who did vote.    

This does not mean that concern with cost of living was negatively associated with voting – inflation was a major driving factor among those who did vote, with two-thirds of young people saying inflation was one of their top three concerns when voting. 

However, what the data is hinting at is that there is a vast number of additional young voters who did not participate in the 2024 election, and they prioritized the economy to an even greater degree than those who did vote.  

Young people who are struggling the most to make ends meet in the current high-inflation environment were more likely to give up on the political process.

According to CIRCLE’s research, almost two thirds (62 percent) of young people who did not vote in 2024 said it was sometimes or often difficult to make ends meet financially.  

These disenfranchised young people were largely ignored by campaigns in the last election cycle.

A full 59 percent said they were never contacted by any organization or campaign about the 2024 election. Forty-eight percent said they had heard “not much” or nothing at all about how to vote.   

This reality is especially important for conservatives to be aware of, because economically disenfranchised voters have been shifting away from Democrats in the two most recent elections.  A relatively large number of economically disenfranchised young people were left out of the 2024 election – and they represent an opportunity for potential new conservative voters in the future.  

Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation. Original here. Reproduced with permission.

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