In a sign that young voters are getting their message across, hours after he was sworn in, Biden signed executive orders that included a few key youth issues. Biden paused student loan payments until September, recommitted to the Paris Climate agreement, and called on Congress to grant permanent status and a path to citizenship to about 1 million young people who were brought into the country unlawfully and protected from deportation under President Barack Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
The power of young voters is evident in the data. According to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University between 52 percent to 55 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds who were eligible to vote did soin November,according to most recent available data. The youth voter turnout surpassed 2016 by an estimated 10 percentage points. By the time all the votes are fully analyzed, the Tufts center projects that youth voter turnout this election cycle may be as high as 56 percent the highest youth participation in decades and on par with 1972, when the voting age was lowered to 18.
While young white voters favored Biden by a slim margin,his support among Black, Asian, and Latino youth exceeded 70 percent, according to data from the non-partisan research center. In fact, the center estimates that in states such as Georgia and Arizona, Black and Latino youth may have single-handedly made Biden competitive.
In Georgia, where Biden beat Trump by 12,000 votes, the Tufts center estimated that young voters, many of them Black, gave the former vice president 188,000 more votes than Trump.
Turnout is an indicator how engaged the young people are, said Abby Kiesa, the deputy director of the Tufts Center. Young people of color were particularly engaged.
Young peoplealso played a crucial role in the success of the two Democratic candidates in the Georgia Senate runoff earlier this month. Young people ages 18 to 29 voted two-to-one for both Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff versus their Republican opponents. Youth supported those Democrats by an even higher margin than they supported Biden in the presidential race, data from the Tufts center show.
As a voting bloc, young people have often been dismissed by politicians and pundits as unreliable. But youth activists across the country say they have been galvanized by recent events, including the 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fl., and the killing of George Floyd last summer by Minneapolis police. When older adults were reluctant to knock on doors and register voters due to the pandemic, young people stepped up, according to grassroots organizations that took part in the campaigns. Young people manned get-out-the-vote phone banks and used social media to remind their peers about the issues at stake. ATufts and Gallup poll in December found that a quarter of youth said they had donated to a campaign or registered others to vote.
Bidens favorability among young people rose after he secured the Democratic Party nomination largely because he adopted more aggressive policies on issues they care about, namely climate change and systemic racism, said Brent Cohen, executive director of Generation Progress, a national advocacy organization.
Moving forward, Cohen said it will be up to the leaders of both political parties to treat young voters as the powerbrokersthey have proven they can be. That did not happen after the 2018 midterms, despite the fact that young people also voted in large numbers in that election.
Im really hopeful that coming out of 2020 we will see elected officials and campaigns and candidates and . . . institutions . . . treat young people as this political powerhouse that we are,’ he said.
Younger voters tend to be skeptical of the political establishment and so far have organized largely outside of the two main political parties, founding activist groups such as March For Our Lives, the gun control group started by survivors of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting and the Sunrise Movement, a group started by young people to combat climate change. Surveys have found that more young voters than in previous generations identify as independents.
And that is a strength, said Toiell Washington, 22, a Boston native who helped found Black Boston,a young community group that organized protest marches this summer for racial justice.
Young people will be watching for progress and will march and mobilize again if they see little progress, Washington said.
Whatever they are claiming they are going to do, they need to be held accountable, Washington said. Historically, being a Black woman, weve been promised a lot of things that we didnt get. Were not going to let them take our votes for granted, because we got them there.
Isabella DAlacio, 20, a Cuban-American and a junior at George Mason University, said she has been lobbying legislators on issues such as gun control and immigration reform and will continue to do so. DAlacio said she first became active in politics and in fighting for gun control after the Parkland school shooting, near where she grew up. Last summer she made hundreds of calls and sent thousands of text messages to voters on behalf of United We Dream Action, an immigrant-youth network.
DAlacio said Biden and the Democrats need to include more youth voices and representatives when they make policy decisions. The Democrats also cant take the Latino vote for granted, DAlacio said, citing increased support for Trump and other Republicans in Florida and parts of Texas.
To ensure they get our vote, they need to show up for us, she said.
With a country divided and elections won on razor-thin margins, young voters have increased leverage to ensure that politicians move swiftly to keep their promises, said Leah Wright Rigueur, an associate professor of American history at Brandeis University who has studied the civil rights movement and politics.
If the Democrats want to keep their hold in the House of Representativesand Senatethey will likely have to turn out and energize young voters for the mid-term elections in 2022, and the best way to do that is to give young voters victories on issues they care about, Wright Rigueur said.
Young voters disenchanted with the political process can easily support an independent candidate or sit out the election entirely, she said.
That should keep every Democratic strategist awake at night, Wright Rigueur said.
Youth pressure on the administration to do more will remain and activists involved in the movements for racial justice, climate change and immigration reform have made clear that they can leverage their power to organize marches and mobilize voters, Wright Rigueur said.
Its a powerful movement, she said. There is going to be a call to the carpet. You will see that be explicit. They are poised to make real and significant demands and changes within our political system.
Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @fernandesglobe. Laura Krantz can be reached at laura.krantz@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @laurakrantz.read more
Young voters helped put Biden in the White House. Now they want action
