What’s motivating students to vote in November?
If you made a judgment based on headlines alone, you might think the Israel-Hamas war is the most important issue to young voters today. After all, more than 2,000 students across the U.S. have been arrested in recent weeks as police try to quell the unrest on college campuses. But new polling shows that this conflict actually isn’t what will motivate their votes in November’s highly anticipated presidential election.
Two separate studies from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics and Axios/Generation Lab found that the Gaza war ranks low on young voters’ list of priorities, which include kitchen table issues like health care reform and education.
“Biden’s in trouble — but it’s not because of what’s happening in Gaza,” Cyrus Beschloss, who’s the CEO of the data intelligence company Generation Lab, tells Katie Couric Media. “The war’s not even close to the top priority. It’s jobs, healthcare, and education access.”
Still, it’s hard to ignore what a big impression pro-Palestine young people are making with their demonstrations, and they’re clearly having at least some impact, given the president’s recent words about a possible ceasefire. But how much of a difference does this issue truly make in Biden’s re-election prospects — and what other issues might be more reliable for turning out the youth vote?
How seriously do young people prioritize the war in Gaza?
Recent polling suggests that the Gaza war isn’t a driving factor for young people when it comes to voting. According to a Harvard Youth Poll released in April, the Israel-Palestine conflict placed 15th out of 16 possible priorities — the only item that ranked lower was student debt.
While that might seem surprising, Harvard University pollster John Della Volpe explains that there’s a big reason behind it: America’s youth are more concerned about getting through the day-to-day than thinking about the future, even when it comes to their own. “Student debt isn’t top of mind because young people are literally just trying to get a roof over their heads,” Volpe tells Katie Couric Media. “But they see the connection because relieving student debt takes some of the stress off of the cost of living.”
Similarly, the Axios/Generation Lab poll found that the conflict in the Middle East was the least important issue facing young voters out of nine options, with only 13 percent of students considering it to be one of their top three.
This sentiment could be a reflection of their engagement with the protests overall. The same poll found that just a small minority (only 8 percent) of college students have participated in the protests — on either the Israel or Palestinian side.
In terms of who college students are blaming for the current situation in Gaza, Axios/Generation Lab found that most — 34 percent — hold Hamas leaders responsible, compared to 19 percent who say Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is accountable, 12 percent who place the fault with Biden, and 12 who percent blame the Israeli people.
What does this mean for President Biden?
Biden sailed to victory in 2020 partly on his pledge to prioritize national stability after the chaos of Donald Trump’s presidency — but some say the high-profile campus protests (and subsequent arrests) are undermining that promise.
About 44 percent of Democratic voters said they disapprove of Biden’s handling of the crisis, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on May 16. And those Democrats who disapproved of his response were less likely to say they would vote for him in November’s election, which is already expected to be a tight race. (Republican nominee Donald Trump is leading with 46.3 percent support, compared to Biden’s 45.2 percent, according to RealClearPolitics’ aggregate of 12 national polls.)
Biden also gets poor marks among young people in particular — just 18 percent support his handling of the conflict in Gaza, according to the Harvard Youth poll. While most Gen Z and late Millennial voters still favor Biden over Trump, 45 percent to 37 percent, 58 percent of them believe the country is moving in the wrong direction, compared to 21 percent four years ago.
Volpe tells us that young people are seriously craving the stability Biden campaigned on, which has been shaken in part by what they’re seeing on social media and their struggle to make ends meet.
“Younger people see the world as unstable today — they’re fed content through social media algorithms that are devised to make them more anxious,” he says. “And one of their goals early in this part of their lives is to be financially independent of their parents, which is incredibly challenging to do in this day and age.”
In response, Trump has seized on discontent in hopes of convincing voters, especially young voters, to support him. If he succeeds, both pollsters believe it could be a blow to Biden, considering he won young voters 18 to 29 by 24 points in the 2020 election, as Beschloss points out.
“Young people’s voting power remains untapped,” he tells us. “They vote at such lower rates than other age brackets that if they were to just vote five percentage points higher, they would still be right around the national average, but that would be a massive change in swing states.”
What issues do students care about most?
Volpe said he sees “seismic mood swings” as young people feel “angst” over a host of issues. The Harvard Youth survey ranked inflation as the top concern, while the Axios/Generation Lab poll named health care as the foremost priority.
Other driving issues included housing, gun violence, education, and jobs. But there was some variation between the polls — for instance, while climate change was ranked 4th on the Axios/Generation Lab poll, it came in 12th in the Harvard poll.
What young people care about is also likely shaped by their political preferences. The Harvard poll has found an unprecedented gender gap when it comes to political preferences. While Democratic support has expanded among young women, the number of young men who identify as Democrats has dropped from 42 percent to 32 percent, while an increasing number (29 percent) identify as Republican.
Volpe points out that most of them were just boys when Trump first came onto the scene and aren’t as familiar with his brand of politics. “There’s not an overwhelming support for Trump, but there’s not the level of toxicity associated with his brand that we saw in 2016 and 2020,” he tells us.
Amid concerns that young voters might sit this election out, 53 percent “definitely” plan to vote this fall, compared to 54 percent who said the same (and helped propel Biden to victory) in 2020. The pollsters agree that their participation could make all the difference whether Biden wins reelection.
“The youth unquestionably will be an influential voting block on this cycle and cycles to come,” says Volpe. “The only reason that Biden and Harris are the president and VP is because of the youth vote, and we cannot underestimate the importance of high levels of voter participation.”
