Youth vote in the news 🗞: Week of 11/21

Warning signs for President Biden. A proposal for housing policies that could help Republicans increase their standing with young people. And a look at Vice President Harris as a youth vote champion.

Welcome back to your weekly roundup of youth vote in the news.

From warning signs in President Joe Biden’s polling numbers, to a proposal for housing policies that could help Republicans increase their standing with young people, and a look at whether or not Vice President Kamala Harris could be a youth vote savior for Democrats, there was no shortage of headlines this week, proof of a growing appetite for stories about young voters and their politics.

Here are a few:

Why Kamala Harris prefers Gen Z to millennials, and why it matters, Courtney Subramanian for the Los Angeles Times, 11/21

Vice President Kamala Harris, who represents the diversity Gen Z knows and loves, has taken on an increased role with outreach to younger Americans. She spent time this fall in conversation with students across the country while on her college campus “Fight for Our Freedoms” tour — focused on issues like abortion access, gun safety, and student loans. Now, while President Joe Biden is struggling with young voters in the polls, Harris’ background and emphasis on topics top of mind for young people may be making inroads with key potential voters.

“A New York Times/Siena College poll released this month found a surprising fault line in the Biden-Harris coalition: 11 percent of her would-be supporters — a majority of whom are nonwhite or younger than 30 — do not back Biden. If Biden had captured Harris’ would-be supporters, he would have led Trump in the overall poll, according to the New York Times,” Subramanian writes.

In turn, those working on and with the Biden Harris reelection campaign are positioning the vice president as a key youth vote messenger.

“She’s a visible representation of the bite that this administration is bringing,” said Quentin Fulks, deputy campaign manager for the Biden Harris campaign.

“Perhaps not many people will listen to someone like President Biden, given his age,” said youth vote activist Victor Shi (who was Biden’s youngest delegate at the Democratic National Convention in 2020), “but having someone like Kamala Harris...there’s a hunger for that.”

A Pro-Housing Agenda Can Help Republicans Win Over Young Voters Next November, Adam A. Millsap for Forbes, 11/20

In exploring how Republicans could attract younger voters, Millsap said U.S. conservatives should take a lesson from their Canadian counterparts (where conservative leaders focused on housing and have gained youth support). Housing is key priority for young people across party lines who are struggling to afford their homes and blaming politicians for the lofty cost.

“A recent poll of Americans 46 years old and younger found that 45% blamed state and local governments for high housing prices, while 70% said government is not doing a good job making housing more affordable,” Millsap writes.

He looks at housing policies in Montana and Washington, and said a political battleground state with a big share of young voters like North Carolina could take a similar approach.

“Today, in too many parts of America, housing is unattainable for young people of modest means who aspire to join the middle class. The major party that empathizes with their plight and commits to doing something about it will be rewarded on election day,” Millsap writes.

Will TikTok be banned? Young voters call leaders 'out of touch' as officials wage war against the platform, Savannah Kuchar for USA Today, 11/20

TikTok made headline after headline last week after young people sympathized with Osama Bin Ladin on the platform, revitalizing politician’s efforts to ban the Chinese-owned app. But as political leaders continue to push its prohibition in the United States, citing concerns that the platform is used to spy on citizens and promote misinformation, Kuchar writes, young voters warn that outlawing TikTok could alienate them. Some point out the hypocrisy in wanting to ban TikTok while American-owned apps like Google and Meta collect user data, too.

“Aveline Clark, a second-year student at the University of Akron, said she finds the arguments against TikTok ‘laughable,’ as well as ‘xenophobic and hypocritical,’” Kuchar writes.

“It really does not help their image at all. And politicians, in general, do not need another issue to make them seem more inauthentic,” Clark said. 

“Congress has the power to curb, to restrict, to do a lot of preventative measures,” said Jeremiah LaPorte, a high school senior in New Jersey. “Saying that there’s no way to take preventative measures, and the only thing to do is to take it away in total – I just think that’s a little extra.” 

A number of public polls show young voters turning on Biden, Mark Murray for NBC News, 11/19

A recent NBC News poll shows President Biden once again losing ground with young voters, while former President Donald Trump is performing better with the demographic. The poll has Trump up over Biden amongst young voters ages 18-34, 46% to 42%. This NBC poll is the latest in a slew of recent polling that shows Biden faltering with young voters amid the Israel-Hamas war. As Murray notes, a recent CNN poll had Trump up one point over Biden among this same age group, and a NYT/Siena College poll had Biden up over Trump by just one point.

“While they could shift back between now and Election Day 2024, the bulk of recent public polling suggests a major shift among young voters against Biden compared to when he won in 2020,” Murray writes.

Activist Olivia Julianna On the Future for Democrats, Abortion Rights and More, Fortesa Latifi for Teen Vogue, 11/17

Ahead of her 21st birthday, Olivia Julianna — well known viral political TikToks, high profile conversations with leaders like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and for clapping back at Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz by raising millions of dollars for abortion rights after he publicly body-shamed her — answers 21 colorful questions about her political activism and musings on young adulthood.

Asked why she thinks people underestimate her, Julianna told Latifi:

“I think people underestimate me because by all accounts a plus size queer Latina from rural South east Texas enrolled in community college classes shouldn’t be in rooms with some of the most powerful people in the world. I shouldn’t have a massive audience of folks listening to what I have to say and how I say it, yet I do. They look at my identities and my background and think I’m an easy target because they’ve always seen minorities and marginalized communities as easy targets. What they don’t take into account is that my lived experiences have given me insight and knowledge that no Ivy League degree could.”