One of the more shameful behaviors on our side this cycle has been the millennial bashing. Despite being the most pro-Hillary Clinton and pro-Democratic age demographic (by far), people have trashed young voters for high levels of support of goofball Gary Johnson (and to a far lesser extent, weirdo Jill Stein). Well, if you were one of those olds shaking your fist at the clouds, you can relax. Millennials are fully aboard, according to the latest tracking poll of millennial voters by Nextgen Climate.
Clinton’s vote share and popularity among battleground millennials are on sharply upward trends: Clinton’s 55% vote share among battleground millennial likely voters represents clear improvement from August (48%, +7) and July (43%, +12). Clinton’s even favorability rating (49% favorable/49% unfavorable) also continues a positive trend from August (44%/54%) and July (35%/63%).
That’s a 28-point net shift, and it will continue shifting through the next several weeks. In fact, Clinton now has parity with Bernie Sanders:
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Millennials are now supporting Clinton at similar levels as they would support Bernie Sanders: On a four-way ballot, Clinton is winning 55% of the vote among likely voters and leading [Donald] Trump by 28 points. On a hypothetical ballot with Sanders replacing Clinton, Sanders earns 56% of the vote and leads Trump by 29. Just 8% of likely millennial voters are “Sanders Holdouts” who would support Sanders but do not support Clinton, down markedly from 20% in July and 15% in August.
I did the math, and that’s a 55-27 Clinton lead. She was at 43 percent back in July. But that’s not the only poll of the youngs released today. USA Today/Rock the Vote released their own numbers.
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On the four-way ballot, Clinton is at 68%, Trump at 20%. Support for third-party candidates is ebbing. Libertarian Gary Johnson is at 8%, Green Party’s Jill Stein at 1%
Even better numbers for Clinton! Weirdly, this poll finds that Clinton’s millennial support is bolstered by young men, 65 percent of which support Clinton, compared to just 47 percent of young women. Seems kinda hard to believe, so time will tell if that’s a statistical anomaly or a sign of something else.
Whether young voters vote for Clinton by a 2-1 margin, or whether it ends up a 3-1 margin, the fact is no other age demographic comes close to matching those numbers. These kids are our nation’s future, and they’re making it look bright as hell, so quit your bitching about them. They rock. And we don’t even have to look to the future to see the benefits of their vote.
Back to the Nextgen poll, which had the less-optimistic numbers:
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Clinton’s gains among millennials are larger than the 2012 margin in several critical states: Based on voter registration counts and historical turnout rates, in terms of total votes, a 12-point shift in Clinton’s share of millennial voters translates to roughly 225,000 additional votes for Clinton in Florida, 140,000 in North Carolina, and 170,000 in Ohio—totals that exceed the respective margins between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in each of these states in 2012 (about 74,000 in Florida, 92,000 in North Carolina and 166,000 in Ohio).
The final numbers will look more like USA Today’s, in the 3-1 range. Count on it. And not only will these young voters help deliver a dominant victory to Clinton, not only will they be the margin in close states, and not only will they help decide close Senate and House elections, but they will establish a voting pattern that will serve us well into the future.
UPDATE: In that USA Today 4-way ballot, they have Clinton at 68 percent, with men at 65 percent and women at 47 percent. As pointed out in the comments, that math doesn’t work out. Not sure where the error is. Looking for crosstabs...
