President Biden is facing a disaster with young voters, raising fears among Democrats that they are in danger of losing a generation if he doesn’t improve his standing with Gen Z.
Biden’s approval rating is down across the board among Democrats, but the numbers among people under 30 are collapsing.
A New York Times-Siena College poll this week found that 94 percent of Democratic primary voters ages 18 to 29 say the party should nominate someone other than Biden in 2024.
Biden, 79, has never been a candidate for younger Democrats, though they rallied to help him win the White House in 2020 as the president endorsed key progressive policy initiatives to address climate change and other problems.
Now polls suggest they could abandon it altogether amid frustration with the lack of progress in Washington on everything from climate change to abortion rights.
“A lot of the young people I’m talking to in particular right now are asking what’s the point of having the trifecta of the Democratic Party if our rights are still being taken away,” said Ellen Scaels, director of communications at the youth climate activist group the Sunrise movement.
“What’s the point of voting?” And obviously we’re pushing people to vote, but that’s going to make it a lot harder for us to do our job,” she said.
Biden received high marks from young voters early in his presidency. However, a Gallup poll released in April found that Biden’s approval rating had fallen 21 percentage points among Americans belonging to Generation Z — those born between 1997 and 2004 — and 19 percentage points among millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 – between the start of his presidency and last March.
A big sticking point when it comes to Biden and young voters is the president’s age. He will be 81 at the start of a second term if re-elected.
Still, Biden’s job performance, not his age, is the dominant issue driving young Democrats to prefer someone other than Biden in 2024, according to the New York Times-Siena College poll.
Young Democrats in the poll were the least likely to cite Biden’s age as the main reason they wanted new blood.
“I think it’s more about issues than age,” said Democratic strategist Eddie Vail.
He and other Democrats note that Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), two progressives, were popular in 2020 among many young Democratic voters.
“Remember when you love [the late Sen.] Was Robert Byrd hot when he opposed the war? And Bernie is clearly no spring chicken. But young people are dealing with the same overall economic problems as everyone else, but it’s worse for them because they don’t have savings, a home, career stability, etc.,” Weil said.
He and others argue that Biden could improve his standing among younger Americans by taking more tangible steps to protect access to abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Last week, Biden announced an executive order designed to protect access to abortion drugs, contraception and emergency care, and protect women who travel out of state for abortions from lawsuits.
Ashley Aylward, research manager at the public opinion firm HIT strategies, said she conducted a focus group last week — before Biden’s executive order — in which young Democratic voters said they were looking for more tangible action on abortion. .
“They’re really just looking for reasons to feel some relief that people in power are actually fighting for them,” Aylward said.
In general, Aylward noted that Young Democrats are looking for more diversity in their representatives in government.
“Young voters — since we’ve been talking to them even in 2020 — they want to see people who look like them running,” she said.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has outlined several programs aimed at attracting the youth vote ahead of November’s midterm elections. The DNC said it is launching a “social ambassador program” to train young volunteers on social media and plans to host education sessions for young voters starting in late July, with the inaugural event featuring Warren as a guest speaker. The party apparatus is also organizing on college campuses in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin.
And the DNC joined TikTok earlier this year in an effort to reach more young voters through new forms of media.
Some say the concerns about Biden and young voters are overblown and not a sign of retreat ahead of the midterm elections.
“His numbers are generally a reflection of the mood of the country, and that can certainly change,” said Democratic strategist Rodel Molino, who served as an aide to the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “I think it can and will change.”
A study by the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School concluded in April that youth voter turnout in 2022 is on track to match the surge in voter turnout during the 2018 midterm exams.
“Biden was underwater with young voters in 2020, and we had the highest youth voter turnout in American history,” said Christina Cintzun Ramirez, who is president of the youth mobilization group NextGen America.
But it was a different election when Democrats were motivated to unseat former President Trump, who, like Biden, will not be on the ballot this fall.
“During the election, even if these people weren’t crazy about Biden, they hated Trump, and that’s why they voted. But it’s different now. They suffer financially. They want things to be better,” said one Democratic strategist.
External mobilization groups will also be critical in the interim. Tzintzún Ramirez said NexGen America is organizing on more than 180 college campuses and running a “micro-influencer program” to attract young leaders with big platforms to help mobilize the Democratic base.
Some, like Sciales, say it’s critical for Democrats to pass some version of the climate and social policy legislation — formerly known as Build Back Better — that Biden proposed but Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.) torpedoed in December. Biden needs every Democratic senator on the bill to get it through a process known as budget reconciliation, which allows Democrats to bypass the GOP.
Democrats have resumed talks on a watered-down version of the bill, but Manchin appeared to doom hopes of a breakthrough Thursday when he told Democratic leaders he would not support new spending on climate initiatives or tax increases in the package.
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Biden also faces a decision on whether to announce more student debt relief, a policy that is popular with voters and the left. The Institute of Politics poll found that 85 percent of young Americans support some government action on student loan debt, although only 38 percent approve of debt cancellation entirely.
“Young voters are extremely progressive. They want to see bold structural changes on climate change, on the economy, and looking at things like canceling student debt, raising the minimum wage, and taxing the rich a fair share,” Cinzun Ramirez said. “And young voters care about racial justice.”
Updated at 7:49 a.m
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