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That said, though Harris had both a student-organizing program and a large social media presence to connect with young Americans, as Election Day got closer, her polling numbers were still falling short of Biden’s 2020 standing with this group.
Seeing Gaza’s political repercussions through the lens of identity misses something. Over the past year, Israel’s slaughter and starvation of Palestinians — funded by U.S. taxpayers and live-streamed on social media — has triggered one of the greatest surges in progressive activism in a generation. Many Americans roused to action by their government’s complicity in Gaza’s destruction have no personal connection to Palestine or Israel. The reason for Americans who protested the Vietnam War was not religious or ethnic. It is moral.
During the campaign, journalists looked at the electoral impact of Israel’s war in Gaza from the perspectives of Arab and Muslim voters. That’s understandable. Donald Trump won the election in the city of Dearborn that supports Joe Biden by about six percentage points.
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He pointed to the Harris campaign as the reason for the vibe. For an entire campaign that was built on vibes, they didn’t look at the room.
They want to live in the same country with their parents. I don’t know if that’s a social issue or an economic issue,” he said. They want a nice life and it’s slipping away.
The Trump campaign hired several outside organizations to run the on-the-ground organizing work, including the advocacy organization Turning Point.
Kirk’s organization tries to get young people involved in conservative politics and the goal was to lose by less. In the last few weeks, we were whispering to each other that there might be something bigger.
He was the only republican who joined TikTok, he has 14 million followers, more than Harris, who has 5 million. Trump did a lot of interviews with young men, who liked them on some of the top podcasts in the country.
Biden lost his footing with young voters before he dropped out of the presidential race. When Harris took over the ticket, she saw a boost in support. The campaign tried to channel that going forward, including embracing the meme culture around her candidacy.
In past years, voters under 30 have proved essential on the margins, especially for Democrats, where even minimal shifts in support can decide an election.
It was a group that the Vice President hoped would be part of her winning coalition. She didn’t perform, so President-elect Trump made gains.
Since 2008, winning Democratic candidates have received at least 60% support from young voters, but Harris did not meet that threshold, getting 54%, according to early exit polls.
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It was a loss especially pronounced in the blue wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – where the vice president’s margins dropped significantly from President Biden’s commanding leads four years ago.
Michigan had the largest change. Young people’s support of both Harris and Trump fell by a quarter in 2020 compared to the previous year.
The man has been studying youth politics for two decades, and was part of Biden’s 2020 campaign. He argued the election results point to disconnects in how Harris appealed to young people on issues – notably around the economy.
“From the earliest focus groups I conducted this year, there was this innate sense that younger people’s personal finances were better and would be better under a Trump administration,” said Della Volpe, who serves as the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
Harris promoted abortion access as part of her campaign. In the recent election, it has galvanized young voters to turn out for Democrats.
However, in this election, voters under 30 were most likely to say the economy and jobs were top of mind, with the issue of abortion as a far second, according to early data from the Associated Press.
To Della Volpe, it’s part of a trend he has been watching for years, where a significant number of young men, especially those who have grown up with Trump, feel disconnected from the modern Democratic Party.
“They’re telling us in our surveys and our focus groups that the Democratic Party doesn’t speak to them. They’re choosing not to be affiliated with it. This is something that you can’t turn around in 30 days or 100 days,” he said. It takes a long time to do that. Donald Trump made that investment. Democrats are the ones who seed the playing field.