Are young voters abandoning Joe Biden? And, if so, are they flocking to Donald Trump?
Just about every national poll seems to show that Biden is underperforming with young people compared to his 2020 results as well as polls at the same point in the 2020 cycle. But the crosstab results of some of these surveys also suggest that Biden is not only losing ground; Trump is gaining support. That’s an especially surprising result for the famously progressive and Democratic-leaning youth vote. What gives?
The debate can be broken down roughly into two camps. There are those who believe Trump and Republicans are gaining with this group, telling you to trust the data. There are just too many polls and surveys, they say, reporting favorable conditions for Republicans and for Trump to not believe that young voters are swinging his way. Polling aggregates show Republicans making gains with younger voters, they point out.
The skeptical side is splintered. There are those who say the pro-Trump shift exists but is being overstated, noting polls specifically of younger voters still show a Biden edge — albeit a diminished one. There are others who question the validity of the polling, saying wild swings between surveys suggest there may be methodological problems. And others say third-party support shows Biden has room to win back voters in a way that Trump doesn’t.
The reality is still a warning sign for Biden and Democrats. Something is happening to their support from the youngest voters, and they’ll need to win back these folks or make up any deficit with support from other voters. Let’s dive in.
The case that there’s a real pro-Trump youth shift happening
Look at what the polling aggregates tell us. Instead of looking at any single poll, take their sum view, conveniently updated every month in this cross-tabulation tracker from the former Democratic pollster Adam Carlson. Regardless of whether you look at the 18–34 or 18–29 subgroups that are often used in…
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