Do not underestimate Gen Z
Let’s push back on the narrative that young people are not excited about their likely choice of two old men for president in 2024. They are. But that’s not the end of the story.
The Independent interviewed young voters at the North Carolina Young Democrats’ annual convention in Durham earlier this month. (Full disclosure: I attended and was one of the event’s sponsors.) Granted, it was a biased crowd:
“The thing that I think people miss the most right now about what’s happening is there’s this narrative that young people are not engaged in politics,” North Carolina Democratic State Party Chair, Anderson Clayton, said. “[People say that] they don’t care. They’re not going to vote this year. And I’m like, ‘No, they are.’ Because young people are not stupid. They are a lot smarter than people give them credit for.”
Maxwell Frost (D-FL), the youngest member of Congress, pointed to young voters’ support of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign as evidence of their voting behavior.
“A lot of young people really loved Bernie Sanders, right? He’s also old. So it’s not really about age, but it’s about policies,” Frost said.
Senator Sanders, who was 78 during his presidential run, obtained nearly half of the youth vote in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries before suspending his campaign.
“The highest youth voter turnout we’ve ever had in our country’s history was in 2020. Who did they vote for? Joe Biden,” Frost added.
Clayton makes the point even more strongly in a related video.
Ariana Baio (The Independent): Are people excited to vote?
Clayton (bluntly): No. I mean, I’m not going to lie to anybody, right, and I shouldn’t.
But she asks a followup question the press is not asking.
Clayton: I went to UNC Charlotte’s campus the other day and I asked every single one of those students, raise your hand if you are excited to vote for the 80 year old president? Not saying which 80 year old, because Donald Trump might as well be up there too. Nobody in that class raised their hand. But how many of you are still going to vote? Every single one of them raised their hand, except for one.
Clayton: And the thing that I think people miss the most right now about what’s happening is, like, there’s this narrative that young people are not engaged with politics, they don’t care, they’re not going to vote this year. And I’m like, no, they are. The narrative around young folks don’t want to vote for Joe Biden because he’s old? I wish people would dig a little bit deeper into that narrative. To me, young people look at Joe Biden and they say you’re not as progressive, maybe, as we need you to be right now. But we can push him. We can’t push a Donald Trump who doesn’t want young people to have the right to vote right now. We can’t push a Donald Trump who doesn’t want people to have the right to abortion. We cannot push that type of president. We can push a president, though, that believes and cares about young people.
Eve Levenson, Director of Youth Engagement for the Biden-Harris campaign, attended the Durham convention. It is the earliest a presidential campaign has placed a youth organizer in the field, she said.
Ken Martin, Democratic National Committee vice chairman Ken Martin, also chair of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), was in North Carolina last weekend in a sign that Biden-Harris and the national party believes North Carolina is flippable this year, and that Clayton could make that happen.
Young voters, as Frost said, may have posted the “highest youth voter turnout we’ve ever had in our country’s history” in 2020. But even if they turn out strongly this fall, they’ll have a way to go to catch up with the turnout rates of the oldsters over 45. But Clayton is pushing them hard, not just in this state, but around the country.
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