HomeNewsGen Z Voters Care About Different Issues, Could Their Votes Throw the...

Gen Z Voters Care About Different Issues, Could Their Votes Throw the GOP?

In a last-ditch effort, Republicans are hoping to swing the midterms again into their favor by campaigning in opposition to rising inflation and crime. However highlighting these two high voter points could do little to persuade the tens of thousands and thousands of Gen Z voters who aren’t headed to the polls with both subject in thoughts.

A brand new Siena School/New York Occasions ballot launched on Monday discovered that the share of voters who mentioned financial considerations have been a very powerful problem dealing with the nation has leaped eight p.c since July—the best enhance amongst any voting problem. And people inflation and recession fears spelled excellent news for Republicans, who have been overwhelmingly favored by voters frightened concerning the financial system.

Nevertheless, polling carried out by Civic Influencers, a nonprofit centered on youth voter registration, discovered that the financial system ranked because the fifth most essential problem for youth voters, with 31 p.c saying it was within the high 5 and solely 10 p.c rating it as their primary concern.

“Younger folks’s values are fairly completely different,” Civic Influencers CEO Maxim Thorne informed Newsweek. “What Gen Z is concentrated on will not be what Boomers have been centered on.”

“There’s a new zeitgeist for this era, which is principally saying, ‘We do not settle for the values of Boomers,'” he mentioned.

A pupil holds an “I Voted” sticker as she leaves a polling station on the campus of the College of California, on Irvine, November 6, 2018, in Irvine, California, on election day. Civic Influencers is working to encourage extra younger folks to vote on this 12 months’s midterm elections.
Robyn Beck/AFP

The nonpartisan group discovered that the highest problem for younger voters is the “therapy of racial and/or ethnic minorities,” with 60 p.c marking it as certainly one of their high 5 points, adopted by healthcare, 54 p.c, and the surroundings, 51 p.c. The fourth main problem was abortion at 33 p.c.

Thorne mentioned that it is not that younger voters do not care concerning the financial system, however fairly that they’re extra centered on how particular issues associated to rising costs affect their day-to-day lives.

“They are not swayed by one-line nonsense like, ‘The financial system sucks.’ That could be a meaningless factor,” Thorne mentioned, including that their considerations look extra like, “Am I going to have the ability to afford this explicit factor? Am I out of the blue going to get debt reduction that frees me up?

“Some form of summary, just like the financial system or the inventory market, will not be affecting my explicit life,” he added.

Civic Influencers has sought to empower younger voters to end up to the polls, however the demographic has traditionally voted at considerably decrease charges than earlier generations.

Who Is Heading To The Polls?

Whereas there was a big youth voter turnout spurred by former President Barack Obama’s 2018 and 2012 campaigns, these numbers hadn’t been seen once more till very just lately, when 53 p.c of voters aged 18 to 29 participated within the 2020 presidential election.

Latest polls from NPR/Marist and the Washington Publish/ABC Information counsel that these figures could as soon as once more be laborious to duplicate this 12 months. Surveys discovered that these aged 18 to 29 are among the many least more likely to vote within the midterms whereas 48 p.c of these aged 19 to 29 say they’re “completely sure to vote” in November.

‘Your Vote Does Matter’

Thorne and his group hope to indicate younger voters their civic participation issues by highlighting how pivotal their vote may very well be in flipping a congressional seat.

“In case your argument is your vote does not matter, then how can we rely, how can we present you that your vote does matter?” he mentioned.

When reaching out to those teams, Civic Influencers factors to their investigation of the 2020 election, which discovered that 12 of the 15 seats that flipped did so by a fraction of native campus enrollment.

“The Gospel Choir, the marching band, a soccer group might have flipped that. Your dorm room of six folks might have flipped that election,” Thorne mentioned.

“It’s not about getting behind a candidate, however getting behind the problems you care about. Candidates come and go,” he mentioned. “We now have for 4.3 million 17-year-olds who will flip 18 this 12 months and subsequent 12 months. So, this 12 months alone there are 8.6 million younger folks couldn’t vote in 2020 as a result of they have been too younger—that’s method larger and extra highly effective for our democracy than getting behind a candidate.”

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular

Recent Comments