by Kate Anderson
A majority of young voters are not planning on voting in the 2024 presidential election, according to a new Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School poll published Tuesday.
The number of Americans under 30 “definitely” planning to vote dropped from 57% in 2020 to 49%, according to the poll. Democrats, who typically receive the most support from young voters, suffered the smallest drop from 68% to 66%, but young Republicans dropped 10 percentage points from 66% to 56%, with independents having similar results, going from 41% to 31%.
Voters under 30 favor President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump, who is leading to be the Republican nominee, by 11 points, according to the poll. Nearly 70% of young adults leaning toward Biden say that they are doing so largely in “opposition to Donald Trump becoming president again” as opposed to “support for President Biden and his policies.”
Nearly 70% of young Trump voters, however, said that they are loyal to the former president, while 35% said that they planned to vote for Trump in order to oust Biden, according to the poll. Biden’s lead drops to only 4 percentage points after potential independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Joe Manchin and Cornel West are introduced into the mix.
Young black Americans saw one of the more significant drops from 50% in 2019 to only 38% as of this fall, according to the poll. Hispanic Americans experienced a large drop as well from 56% to 40%, while young white voters only fell five percent from 62% to 57%.
Voters under 30 said that they trust Biden more on issues such as climate change, abortion, education, protecting democracy, health care, gun violence and Ukraine, according to the poll. Trump had the advantage on the economy, national security and defense, the Israel-Hamas war, strengthening the working class, crime and public safety and immigration.
The poll consisted of a sample of 1,098 18-to-29-year-olds between Oct. 23 and Nov. 6, with a margin of error for the total sample at 2.86%.
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Kate Anderson is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
