As recent elections have shown, Republicans are struggling on the national, state and local levels. In 2020, Donald Trump became the first incumbent president who lost re-election since 1992. The “red wave” so many Republicans predicted for the 2022 midterm elections never materialized. This year, including November’s off-year elections, Republicans faced more defeats up and down the ballot — even in states and districts historically thought of as favoring Republicans.
The youth vote continues to play a major role in Democrats’ electoral success. A recent analysis found that Democrats maintain a 21-point advantage over Republicans with young voters. The GOP understands this problem well: As former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker admitted earlier this year on Fox News, “Young people are the problem,” and Republicans must “turn it around if [they] are going to win again.”
But Republicans are not “turning it around.” Despite holding the majority in the House, the GOP isn’t doing anything to address young people’s most specific concerns — whether it’s gun violence, climate change or student loans. Instead, the party — often behind closed doors — is taking a page out of the anti-democracy playbook. That is, Republicans are currently waging a sustained, intense and targeted war to disenfranchise young people in 2024.
Voter suppression is of course a well-trodden strategy for the GOP. The party continues to target racial and ethnic minorities like Black and Hispanic Americans through tactics like gerrymandering, enacting stricter voter ID requirements, and restricting early voting options. So it’s no surprise that as young voters turn out at robust levels, Republicans are doing more than ever to block me and my fellow students from casting our ballots in 2024.
One chilling instance that highlights the depth of the GOP’s commitment came from Cleta Mitchell, a conservative lawyer who helped Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020…
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