(RightWing.org) – In the 2020 presidential election, young voters under 30 swung heavily behind the Democrat candidate, Joe Biden. That played a major part in his victory, and his push for student loan giveaways shows that he’s relying on them to get him re-elected. That might not be as easy as he hopes, though. Republican challenger Donald Trump is making inroads with younger voters. He isn’t ahead among the under-30s yet, but he’s certainly heading that way.
Under-30s Abandon Biden
Six months before the 2020 election, Biden had a 23-point lead among Americans aged 18 to 29. Among those who were registered voters and said they were likely to vote, that lead increased to 30 points. The Spring 2024 Harvard Youth Poll looked at how the president is performing among that same age bracket now, and the White House is unlikely to be happy with the results.
The latest poll found that 45% of under-30s plan to vote for Biden, against 37% who back Trump. That means Biden’s lead in this key group has been slashed by two-thirds. His support has held up slightly better among those who say they’re likely to vote, but even there, his lead has dropped to 19%. That implies that if Trump can persuade more young Americans to go to the polls, he could neutralize most of Biden’s youth vote.
This isn’t the first poll that shows Trump eating into the voting blocs that supported Biden four years ago. The president still has a lead among women and non-white voters, but repeated polls show that the young — who haven’t backed a Republican candidate since 1988 — are increasingly swinging toward Trump.
In March, a Fox News poll showed Trump ahead among the under-30s; in early April a Marist poll put the Republican ahead among both millennials and Generation Zers, with Biden only leading among the over-45s.
President Turns to Bribery
Biden has been pushing hard to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans, a move that’s clearly aimed at younger voters who have run up big college debts but are now struggling to find well-paying jobs. Will that be enough, though? The Harvard poll found three key issues that motivate the under-30s. They’re losing trust in public institutions, which are mostly controlled by Democrats. They’re worried about the state of the economy, which is creaking under the weight of Biden’s out-of-control spending. Finally, they want the Israel-Hamas war to end.
Trump has always advocated putting America first instead of getting the US involved in foreign wars. That message might be starting to cut through with young Americans fed up with forever wars.
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