'I’m very over this being a vibes election': Undecided young voters are craving messaging on policy

I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but young people want to hear the presidential candidates' concrete policies. And more on 'Generation Dissatisfied' and their economic woes.

I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but as the election cycle chugs along it’s becoming even more clear that young voters (especially those who don’t consider themselves aligned with either party, which there are many of, according to the latest NYT/Siena College poll of registered voters), are looking for values > virality.

Ahead of tonights’ debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, I checked in with young people across the political spectrum to hear what they’re looking for from the presidential candidates. The majority said they want to hear the candidates’ policy plans (and that’s true for Harris especially).

For example, Joshua Mills, 23 and from Tulsa, Oklahoma, is an independent and undecided voter. While he voted for Trump in 2020, he’s not positive he’ll do so again in November, and today, he told me that he’s “open to Harris depending on policies she can hopefully unveil tonight.”

“I’ll be interested to see how well Kamala uses the debate as a platform to market her policies/stances or if she tends to lean more toward attacking Trump. I will also be interested in seeing if Trump continues to dodge questions and how he responds to potential attacks from Harris. Im hopeful it will be more content based then the last debate,” Mills said.

Pratika Katiyar, who’s 21 and from Virginia, is voting for the first time in a presidential election this year. She said she “hope[s] Harris talks about policy instead of repeating buzz words and talking points.”

“Her policy page was pretty disappointing and I hope she shares what she’ll do differently than Biden,” Katiyar said in a text message, referring to a newly minted policy section on Harris’ campaign website.

Katiyar, who goes to Northeastern University, said:

“I’m very over this being a ‘vibes’ election, it’s probably my biggest criticism of Harris, but young voters, most of the kids I go to school with, do not pay attention to the influencers who are in support of Harris or the memes, but they are paying attention to the fact that rent in Boston is unaffordable and that it is so difficult to get a job in this market.”

Katiyar explains some of her thoughts below:

Brandy Merriweather, who’s 25, from Georgia, and was part of an August listening session hosted by The Up and Up, said she “want[s] to hear policy & honesty.” According to Merriweather, “whoever does that less will lose.”

“By policy I, along with many others, mean a direct ‘plan of action’ [or] ‘proposed solutions,’ Merriweather said.

The top issues she would like to see addressed are: housing, the environment, student loans (“I need an update,” she said), international relationships (“because there are wars we are funding that are starting to put targets on our back even more.. what’s the plan there?”), border security and immigration, racial inequities, education (book bans) and safety for children, healthcare, and car insurance (“Why does that keep going up?” she asked).

Lucy Cox, who’s 20 and from California, is an undecided voter who said: “I’m really unsure if tonight will help me move the needle.”

“I’m definitely expecting to hear a lot of talking points. I’m also definitely looking for Harris to expand on her policy proposals, how they will differ from [President Joe] Biden, and how she responds to criticism that she is in office right now and isn’t doing all these things she’s promising,” she said — specifying Harris’ plans “especially with lowering prices and attending to the border crisis.”

“For Trump, I’m interested to see if he makes a play for moderates and traditional conservatives (like me) especially to see if he embraces more conservative, rather than populist fiscal policy and if he takes a more hawkish stance on foreign policy,” she said.

Generation dissatisfied and their economic woes

I'm proud to have been a part of an immersive series about what’s at sake for women in the 2024 election for Glamour magazine. You can check out the full package here.

My piece, on How Gen Z became Generation Dissatisfied, explores the ins and outs of a hyper-charged campus climate (and what that means for young women who consider themselves to be somewhere in the middle). 

Here’s an excerpt:

For the last two years, ahead of the 2024 presidential election, I have traveled thousands of miles around America to hear from hundreds of young people. And alongside the intense political discourse, there is also intense disaffection.

The conversations I’ve had with college students around the country paint an image of campus culture in crisis. Issues such as the war in Gaza, abortion, and LGBTQ+ rights have activated students on the left, but these same students are often increasingly disenfranchised—feeling that politicians aren’t hearing their concerns and that even the Democrats aren’t delivering strong enough action. Those on the right often feel they cannot speak freely and that they are demonized for political beliefs which they should have the freedom express and which simply differ from their peers—pushing them further into their corner. And in today’s America, there’s also a silent cohort of young people who exist somewhere in the middle—who don’t necessarily want to spend their college years taking a stance on political issues, or who mourn the lack of multisided discourse, recognizing they don’t fit neatly into partisan categories—and who are too often ignored while political and university leaders fixate on more-partisan extremes.

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And today for

The Free Press

, I wrote about young Americans’ fractured notion of the American dream and why buying a home seems “nearly impossible” for members of Gen Z.

As I’ve written about, housing almost always comes up as a number one concern for young voters in all corners of the country. This piece details how young people — from Nic Sumners in Virginia, to Jace O’Malley in Texas, Elizabeth Prophet in Illinois, Mia Nakamura and Nick Tanuredjo in Nevada, and Xander Lemon in Arizona — are struggling with the cost of living, and why they’re skeptical that Trump or Harris can fix it.

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Join my new broadcast channel on Instagram 📲

And last but not least, today I launched the newest place to chat all things young voters in 2024… my Instagram broadcast channel (like a chatroom). I hope you’ll chime in. See you there.