Young Voters Might Actually Show Up At The Polls This Year

[DemocratSinceBirth]

The question on many Democrats’ minds is: Will young people turn out to vote in 2018? Recent survey data has liberals worried. In particular, a recent Gallup poll found that only 26 percent of American adults age 18 to 291 said they were “absolutely certain to vote.” Meanwhile, the Public Religion Research Institute found that 35 percent of young people said they were certain to vote, but it was still fewer than the 38 percent who said they would vote in the last midterm election in 2014. On the face of it, this sounds like pretty low voter turnout. But you have to remember in a midterm, turnout is already depressed — usually around 40 percent of all voters compared to the roughly 60 percent who generally vote in a presidential election. The midterm electorate is also generally older and whiter than it is in presidential years, which has sparked Democratic concern that young voters, who predominantly identify as Democrats and who backed Hillary Clinton by around 20 percentage points in 2016, won’t show up to vote. But other data I looked at suggests that this fear might be misguided and that turnout among the 18-to-29 group could be way up in 2018. Before we jump into this other data, let’s first look at young voter turnout in midterms from 1998 to 2014 to provide context for what we might see in 2018.

To get a sense of the rate at which younger voters have historically turned out in midterm elections, I looked at data from the Current Population Survey2 over the past two decades. In that period, the high mark for midterm turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds was 2006, when 25.5 percent of citizens in that age group voted.3 That was also the last time Democrats had a successful midterm cycle. Coincidence? Maybe not. The chart below plots midterm turnout rates for four age groups commonly used in exit polls and as you can see, young people turn out at sharply lower rates than older Americans.4

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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/young-voters-might-actually-show-up-at-the-polls-this-year/?ex_cid=2018-forecast

"I believe the children are our future Teach them well and let them lead the way ."

[lancelyons]

1. I just saw on CNN where the Hispanic voters may not even vote

I dont know if this is a scare piece to get them out to vote.

I am not sure if CNN and the media love the trump era because its shock media coverage which they love.

A normal president might just be boring to the media.

[kimbutgar]

2. I know a lot of Hispanic people angry over the orange maggot putting brown children in cages

Obviously cnn doesn’t listen to Spanish speaking talk radio. They are angry and will vote if they can.

[qazplm135]

3. apathy among the youth and Hispanics

when it comes to voting is the primary thing keeping Dems from power everywhere.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Maybe Taylor S. encouraged some of these kids to get out and vote. I hope so, for all of us are ...

impacted. The Congress is going to continue to take away benefits (such as $500 billion dollars from social security already) from them in order to pay for all of their crap and have done so already, in order to claim that they have no deficits, w/ their spending bills.

They'll continue to attack hard won freedoms, such as our first amendment rights to protests in Washington DC,
clamp down w/ restrictive policies on abortions, gay marriage, pensions funded by companies, excessive spending on the military industrial complex, unwanted wars in places none of us could care about, and so forth. The list could go on.

[Hortensis]

5. Second day early voting in our blood red

district in Georgia. The line was unbelievable for early voting. I am guessing it's the race for governor since there's approximately zero worry about electing a democrat to represent this district.

No young people at all, this crowd is very heavily retired ages, but very likely other crowds to be are at work.

Go, Stacey!

[Garrett78]

6. 30% turnout for those under 30 would be considered huge. That's sad.

[salin]

7. Months long efforts at registering students at Indiana University

suggest a whole lot of young folks are registered. We'll see about the voting part, but I am hopeful.