First, there was Al Gore
Al Gore campaigned against two candidates in 2000. One, of course, was George W Bush, who was elected President in spite of losing the popular vote. The other was Ralph Nader, who received just shy of 3,000,000 votes or 2.74% of all votes. Nader’s totals in the closely contested states of Florida, Oregon and New Hampshire were well above the margins between Mr. Gore and Gov. George W. Bush. Nader received almost 100,000 votes in Florida in 2000, a state George W. Bush won by 537 votes over Al Gore. An analysis of the Gallup data suggests that Nader supporters in 2000 tended to be younger, not affiliated with either major party, and ideologically liberal. There was never the slightest chance that Nader would get electoral votes from even one state. All he was ever going to be was the spoiler.
Bush, of course, went on to start a needless war in Iraq where 4,500 Americans were killed and another 32,000 were wounded. More than 300,000 Iraqi were killed through aerial bombing, shelling, gunshots, suicide attacks, and fires started by bombing.
Then, There Was HRC
In 2016, Hillary Rodham Clinton had a difficult primary campaign because of one opponent, Bernie Sanders, who won 23 state contests. Senator Sanders eventually endorsed Ms. Clinton in the general campaign but that wasn’t enough. Many of Sanders’ supporters continued to smear Senator Clinton unceasingly. In their eyes, she was no more than a “Wall Street-enriched, multiple-war-advocating, despot-embracing” candidate. “ Bernie Bro’s” kept up a virulent online campaign against Clinton right up until November. It was bad enough that top Sanders campaign aides reached out to senior officials in the Clinton campaign and other women who supported her to apologize for Bro behavior. Online, Sanders’ aides pushed their digital community to police itself and keep the Bros quiet. Volunteer members of Sanders’ digital army scrambled to report offenders. The online attacks against Clinton supporters, particularly women, were malevolent.
Did all this vituperation cost Clinton the election? It’s difficult to definitively make that claim given the other headwinds she faced. But it certainly didn’t aid her efforts. In that election, the portion of young voters who voted for the Democratic candidate was 5% less than in 2012. No other age cohort had as sharp a drop. The oldest voters actually increased their votes for the Democratic candidate.
It’s estimated that 23.7 million young voters participated in the 2016 presidential election. Around 13 million of them voted for Secretary Clinton. Had 60% of young voters cast their ballot for the Democratic candidate, as they had four years earlier, she would have received an additional 1.2 million votes. Clinton’s aggregate raw vote loss in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan was around 78,000 votes.
Here’s a quick reminder of what the loss by the “Wall Street-enriched, multiple-war-advocating, despot-embracing” candidate cost the country: stacking the Supreme Court with abortion-hostile justices, the nearly complete loss of women’s reproductive rights, roll back of well over 100 environmental regulations, thousands of deaths during a mismanaged pandemic, huge tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, efforts to take health care insurance away from millions of Americans, an all out attack on workers’ health and safety and the right to organize among many other harmful policies, separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border, effectively declaring war on science — these were the fruits of the Trump administration. And that’s before you get to his persistent assault on democracy.
Is Biden Next?
The recent history, then, of litmus testing Democratic presidential candidates for ideological purity by young voters is, arguably, at least partly responsible for the ills we face today. One would think this history, as relatively recent as it is, would give today’s youthful voters pause as they consider who to vote for later this year. One would be disappointed.
“I’m definitely not going to sugarcoat it: I personally am nervous,” said Liam Richichi, the vice president of College Democrats at Michigan State University. He added that students appeared “bored with the prospects that we have.”
A December 2023 poll showed that 49% of young people supported former President Donald Trump, while just 43% of 18- to 29-year-olds said they preferred Biden. Biden is even struggling with young people who identify as Democrats. A Fall 2023 Harvard Kennedy School poll shows that just 62% of Democrats aged 18 to 29 years old said they would vote for Biden in 2024.
There’s no question that the outbreak of violence in Israel and Netanyahu’s response to it has alienated many young voters. The “uncommitted” vote in the Michigan primary was significant. But young voters’ disenchantment with Biden may go deeper than unhappiness with the President’s affection for Israel. Even before Israel’s war in Gaza, Biden’s low approval numbers from younger Americans were frequently making headlines.
One would imagine that young voters’ enthusiasm for Biden has diminished because Democrats have discounted the interests and needs of young voters even as Republicans have courted them.
But precisely the opposite is true. Since the 2020 election, the Biden administration has pushed through a major investment in fighting climate change; billions of dollars for infrastructure are flowing into communities, including rural, economically strapped areas; the first African American woman was appointed to the Supreme Court; many judges from notably diverse professional backgrounds have been placed on the lower courts, and so on.
Yet in the minds of many young Americans (and interest groups), Biden isn’t progressive enough, not acting boldly enough on priorities for the political left.
A Harvard Youth Poll, released last spring by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, found Biden earned an approval rating of 38 percent among American registered voters between ages 18 and 29.
There is a danger that young voters who supported Biden in 2020 will boycott the general election in 2024. Worse yet, President Joe Biden isn’t just in trouble with dissatisfied young voters. He’s facing the possibility Trump could do better with young voters than any other Republican candidate of the modern era.
Are Young Voters Just Nuts?
One begins to wonder, then…are young voters nuts? Given that a Trump presidency not only won’t give them what they want, but will strive mightily to take away what few rights and benefits they presently enjoy, we have to consider the possibility. There is no issue important to young voters to which Republicans have expressed anything but antipathy and disdain. From reproductive rights, to health care, to climate change, to gun safety, and everything in between, the Republicans have gleefully thumbed their noses at young voters’ interests. And, yet, they seem unconcerned about the possibility that those Republicans will gain control of every branch of government. It’s tough to explain such indifference to their own well-being other than to conclude that they are…well…crazy.
I’m not one to argue that telling young voters that they’re batwing nuts for even considering the possibility of helping violent fascists hold the levers of power will motivate them to vote for Democrats. It’s just that I’m at a loss as to what to do to convince young voters that the opposition doesn’t simply have different ideas than we do but that they seek to get rid of us and our ideas altogether. What can we tell them that they haven’t already heard or read in every outlet this side of The Epoch Times?
The target is 60%. That is, Biden has to garner 60% of the youth vote to get a second term. When Democratic presidential candidates hit that target, they win. When they don’t…they lose. (Biden got 61% of the youth vote in 2020.) Let’s hope that enough of those young voters regain their sanity before November to get President Biden above this milestone again. For all of our sakes.
