A Post-Mortem of the Youth Vote in 2024

This article is a follow-up to an earlier Berkeley Political Review article entitled “Blue Generation: Gen Z and the Democratic Party.”

In the 2024 presidential election, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris underperformed President Joe Biden’s vote share in 2020 nationally by three percentage points. Harris’ underperformance is more striking when looking at individual states, even states that traditionally fall into the Democratic column. In California, her home state and which she represented in the Senate before being elected to the vice presidency in 2020, she underperformed Biden by a little over five percentage points. While she lost 1.83 million votes in California, Trump gained over 75,000 votes and improved upon his 2020 margin by four points. Both media and political pundits have tried to explain why Harris lost traction as Trump made gains, with one frequent observation being depressed Democratic turnout in 2024 compared to historically high turnout in 2020. Demographics add another line to the story: Biden won youth (ages 18 to 29) voters by 24 points, but Harris only led Trump by 11 points. How did the youth vote change so drastically in the span of just four years?

On The Issues

Going into the 2024 election, the Harvard Youth Poll found Harris had a 20 point lead over Trump with youth voters. After President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign in July, Democrats quickly coalesced around Harris. Her campaign had a prolific online presence, with several memes of the candidate going viral. That strategy, spearheaded by the campaign’s rapid response team that went by the @KamalaHQ handle across many platforms, was targeted towards youth. This momentum paralleled and built upon that summer’s pop culture events, from Chappell Roan’s song “Femininomenon” and Charli XCX’s album Brat.

On key issues, Harris had a strong advantage on abortion and strengthening the working class while maintaining a narrow lead on immigration and the economy. Trump led Harris on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Her strength on the issue of abortion is expected, given the residuals of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned abortion protections helped Democrats remain competitive during the 2022 midterm elections. However, Harris’ stance on abortion did not help her avoid the dropoff in votes, as much of that happened in liberal states where abortion protections were already in place regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs. In New York City, where swaths of the city turned towards Trump, abortion has been legal statewide even before Roe v. Wade. While salient in 2022, it missed the mark particularly in blue states.

Harris’ close association with President Biden dragged down her credentials on economic issues. One common political attack specifically directed at the Biden-Harris administration was the inflation crisis. Her campaign was heavily tied to the price of eggs, a sign of inflation that was hitting the pockets of everyday Americans. While this is arguably an issue across the board with Americans of all ages expressing concern, there is some evidence that young voters place some blame for economic issues on Harris. As Tufts University’s CIRCLE Youth Poll found, young voters listed the economy as their top issue. This is unsurprising with young adults, in particular, looking at a bleak labor market that has resulted in widespread underemployment of college graduates. Not helping Harris’ case to young voters who are facing underemployment is the failure of the Biden administration to cancel student loan debt, a plan stymied by the Supreme Court. Ultimately, youth vote expert Melissa Deckman told The Guardian: “For Gen Z voters who care about the economy, they really broke for Donald Trump.” With that being said, youth who backed Trump also split on favoring more government involvement in the economy, something typically opposed by conservatives.

However, one major issue that is hard to capture exactly, yet particularly relevant to the youth demographic, was the Middle East conflict. In the aftermath of Hamas’ attacks on October 7 and Israel’s ongoing response that has devastated Palestinians in Gaza, college campuses became highly visible protest grounds opposing both the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the Biden administration’s response to the conflict. Israel has historically been tied to American foreign policy, with the country being the “largest cumulative recipient of U.S. aid.” As a sign of the Biden-Harris administration’s weakness on this issue, youth voters trusted Trump—who had more openly criticized the Israeli response—more by four points on the issue, based on another Tufts University poll conducted in February 2024. However, a large plurality, 44 percent, trusted neither candidate. This is in spite of the first Trump administration taking various actions that undermined the longstanding two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, such as moving the American embassy to Jerusalem—the disputed capital of both states—and supporting Israeli expansion into part of Palestine, the West Bank. When asked about the issue itself, the 18 to 29 group was most likely of any age demographic to “believe there is a genocide in Palestine” (49 percent) and most supportive of “an immediate ceasefire” (28 percent). But short-term memory may have mattered more: in the same month that the poll was conducted, the U.S. vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire. When Harris became the Democratic nominee, she attempted to bridge the administration’s position and young people’s sentiments, though it is clear that she lacked credibility on the issue.

Changing Demographics

As a whole, the 2024 election represents an electoral gulf separating young men and young women. Young males backed Biden by 11 points in 2020, but they flipped for Trump by one point in 2024 even though Democrats held on to the bloc in the 2022 midterms. A Brookings report identifies disillusionment, isolation, and resistance to the changing role of masculinity. In regards to changing masculinity, Trump represents “a return to more patriarchal systems which offer a break from the social developments which they believe have begun to unfairly work against their societal interests” which can explain that source of support.

Trump’s campaign strategically reached out to young men on platforms that they were already on. Although he encouraged a TikTok ban in 2020, his campaign created content on that platform targeting this group and promised to “save” the platform in 2024. Many influencers with appeal to young men also endorsed Trump whilst “few are vocally supporting Biden.” On the other hand, women break by and large for Democrats, who better represent their embrace of feminism and self-empowerment. This is perhaps embodied in Harris’ candidacy itself, as an Asian and a Black woman who had set many “firsts” throughout her career.

Nationally, Trump gained significant ground with minority voters in the 2024 election. Arab voters in Dearborn, Michigan—a majority-Arab community—contributed to his winning the state, reflecting discontent amongst young Arabs and Muslims over the Gaza crisis. Hispanic voters in the Rio Grande Valley helped reverse Texas’ trend to the left and speed Florida’s rightward shift by delivering Miami-Dade County. Youth voters played a major role in these shifts. Young people supporting Palestine encouraged others to redirect their votes from Harris to Green Party candidate Jill Stein. With young Hispanics, Trump went from a 41 point deficit in 2020 to just a 6 point deficit. Amongst young Black voters, that deficit narrowed from 79 points to 67 points, a comparatively smaller, yet nonetheless notable, shift. Further enhancing the gender gulf, shifts towards Trump were also most pronounced with young Latino men—54 percent of whom backed Trump—and young Black men. As a takeaway from this changing dynamic of young minority men, Brakkton Booker writes in Politico that “a growing share of Black and Latino men are losing faith in the Democratic Party’s ability to deliver on policies that can benefit them.”

Taking a Retrospective Look

Young voters were driven to Trump for his representation of change from the Biden-Harris White House. Republicans drove home the inflation issue and capitalized on social and political discontent over masculinity and war. As the 100-day mark of the second Trump presidency approaches, however, it is evident that the administration and its decisions have not necessarily lived up to the will of young voters. 

First, the White House has yet to make a meaningful impact on the young people’s economic concerns. While inflation was effective at countering Harris, it has already increased under the Trump administration. The President said on the campaign trail that he “will immediately bring [grocery] prices down, starting on day one.” However, prices have increased and continue to burden the everyday consumer, with egg prices, in particular, projected to increase more than 40 percent. While surging egg prices may be a result of the bird flu outbreak, this does not explain the overall rise in grocery prices. There is also the paradox of the administration promising consumers economic relief yet relentlessly pursuing tariffs against China, Canada, and Mexico that will inevitably further raise prices for Americans. It has also failed to address the economic woes plaguing college graduates, and has also exacerbated them. For example, President Trump signed an executive order to limit the reach of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program which will affect young people in public service careers carrying student loan debt.

Second, President Trump’s approach to Gaza has involved a proposal to colonize the territory, displace Palestinians, resettle the area, and develop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Domestically, he set an administration priority targeting pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses and has targeted said non-citizen protesters. Many young organizers were involved in the Abandon Harris campaign, which even if it did not lead to Trump votes nor did it constitute a formal endorsement of him, helped dampen support for Harris so that Trump could emerge victorious. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, benefitted from more votes though Harris still would not have won with her votes. While Trump may not have been explicitly endorsed by young people sympathetic to Palestine, he does derive part of his victory from Harris’ weakness on the issue. It is still unclear to what extent the administration’s actions have affected Trump’s standing with Arab-Americans, but some have reconsidered their support for him. With this voter group helping him carry swing states like Michigan, losing their support can cost the GOP in future cycles.

Third, young voters concerned over the job market have not seen solace in federal employment. As part of the Trump administration’s plan, led by Elon Musk through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the federal workforce is shrinking. This is happening although DOGE is not a Cabinet department and Musk is not a Cabinet secretary. One move that disproportionately affects young people is the firing of probationary workers and hiring freezes. The Department of Justice canceled job offers for honors law students into permanent positions. The Presidential Management Fellows program, which exists to “entice highly qualified workers with advanced degrees to join the federal government,” was cut. Donald F. Kettl, associated with the University of Maryland, said there is the long-term effect of “deterring young workers from joining the ranks of the federal government for years.” With everything considered, this cuts off “an entire generation of younger workers” from federal service. In an already volatile labor market, losing access to federal employment opportunities—in November 2024, the federal government employed 3 million people—is an economic threat to young Americans that their votes may reflect in the next election.

Looking Forward: 2025 and Beyond

Although Harris’ performance with youth challenged the expectation of higher support for Democratic candidates, it would be premature to characterize these shifts towards Trump and the Republican Party as permanent. Elections are fundamentally situational cycles that reflect the context in which they exist. As evident in Trump’s 2024 victory, Biden’s historic win in 2020, supported by a vastly different political landscape attenuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, did not last for more than a single election. Democrats saw a “blue wave” in the 2018 midterms yet yet nearly lost that congressional majority in 2020 on the same ballot that Biden won. As the second Trump presidency unfolds, Democrats are in the midst of a debate over party strategy as they try to understand what happened in 2024, not just with young voters but the general American electorate as a whole.

While Democrats soul search, that process does not pause the continuous cycle of elections. Despite record spending in a fierce battle for ideological control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Trump-won state elected liberal candidate Susan Crawford earlier this month. One crucial issue that the court will soon decide is the legality of abortion within Wisconsin. Later this year, New Jersey and Virginia will hold elections for their governors and state legislatures among other offices. Harris won New Jersey by around five points, notable given the state’s conventional support for the party. Virginia has been Democratic-leaning on the federal level, yet Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin won the 2021 governor’s race. Both states will shape up to be particularly competitive in light of the 2024 election. In such environments, the youth bloc will be important. This goes beyond, into 2026 when the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives will be put to the test. However, if 2024 holds any lessons on earning the votes of young Americans, Democrats will need to look inward at their messaging and platform for issues that matter to youth while Republicans must defend their record on those same issues after holding a federal trifecta.

Featured Image: Orange County Register