At the risk of upsetting the apple carts of numerous amateur election analysts, I have what might be an unpopular opinion about all the stories that credit young voters with saving the election for Democrats.
If you’ve been on Twitter lately, you may have noticed a large number of claims that Gen Z is the reason that Democrats avoided a red wave, and that we should now sit up and listen to their wisdom. These claims are based on a single statistic: that Gen Z voters went +28% for Democrats (or 64%-36% if you’d rather), the highest rate of any age cohort.
First of all, good for them. I’m pleased to see Gen Z voters supporting Democrats.
However, this is one data point without any referents. Here’s another data point: Only 27% of Gen Z voters participated in the election, the lowest rate of any age cohort. They didn’t actually contribute much to the overall high turnout rate of Democrats in the election. Early estimates have 2022 turnout slightly over 46% nationally, with higher percentages in some northern states (over 60% in Minnesota and Michigan) And by the way, young voters turned out at a rate of 36% in 2018. So 27% actually represents some backsliding.
I was recently sent an email from Daily Kos elections in which the author presented long lines at a campus voting center as evidence of high turnout by young voters. I’m going to be kind and posit that whoever said this hasn’t been at the job very long. Long lines to vote are not signs of high turnout, They’re a sign of voter suppression. We often have high turnout at my polling place in New Jersey, but we never have long lines. That’s because we have a sufficient number of voting machines and poll workers to handle everyone quickly and smoothly. Long lines are a sign of insufficient voting machines and/or understaffed polls. It’s the kind of thing that happens often where Republicans control state and local government.
And lastly, there’s more to saving Democrats than just showing up to vote. That’s the very least you can do. There’s also contributing to GOTV efforts for candidates, volunteering for their campaigns, phone banking and knocking on doors to personally get out the vote, etc.
So again, I’m happy that young voters voted Democratic. But I wish more of them would participate. And until they do, they don’t deserve ALL the credit.
