Youth vote in the news 🗞: Week of 11/28

Musings on polls showing President Biden struggling with young voters. Evidence of high youth turnout in Pennsylvania's Supreme Court election. And a profile on a conservative Gen Z journalist.

There was plenty of youth-focused news this Thanksgiving week.

From musings on recent polls showing President Joe Biden struggling with young voters via the New York Times chief political analyst, to evidence of high youth turnout in Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court election, a one-on-one with a youth vote reporter on the biggest themes for the voting bloc ahead of 2024, and a profile of a Gen Z investigative journalist making waves in conservative media, here are some of this week’s biggest stories:

Why Biden’s Weakness Among Young Voters Should Be Taken Seriously, Nate Cohn for the New York Times, 11/27

New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn proposes two explanations for the polls we’re seeing on Biden’s struggle with young voters. First, he says, perhaps the polls are wrong, and they’re not effectively reaching the bloc of young Democrats who voted for Biden in 2020. Or, he says, maybe the polls are right and these young voters are in fact saying they wouldn’t vote for Biden right now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come through for the president next November.

“When dozens of polls all say the same thing, it’s worth taking the polling seriously. It’s easy to remember that the polling can be wrong, but it can be easy to forget that the polling is usually in the ballpark. It’s a losing game to dismiss all polling simply because it doesn’t comport with expectations,” Cohn writes.

As for why we (myself included), might be so fixated on them, Cohn suggests it’s because they’re so atypical: “These polls do not depict the usual, stable basis for vote choice that we’ve become accustomed to in our polarized country.” He continues: “This is not an election where almost all voters like their own party’s candidate while disliking the opposing party’s candidate and disagreeing with them on the issues.”

Youth turnout skyrocketed for Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court election, Sean Kitchen for The Keystone, 11/27

New data from Pennsylvania shows that youth turnout on college campuses for the state’s 2023 supreme court race was more than two times that of the last supreme court election in the commonwealth.

“Some of the largest increases in turnout between the 2021 and 2023 elections occurred in precincts that housed Penn State University, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh or the University of Pennsylvania, with Temple University seeing a 563% increase during that time,” writes Kitchen.

According to organizers with Project 26, a 2023 youth vote operation in the state, those working to turn out student voters focused on traditional canvassing and “dorm based relational outreach.”

“According to a post-election brief provided by Project 26, their youth turnout operation began on Oct. 2nd and consisted of over 55 student fellows to build relationships with their peers. Organizers and students built relationships with campus Resident Advisors and school administrators, which allowed them inside campus dorms to knock doors and hold events,” Kitchen explains.

To contextualize the increase in Pennsylvania’s youth voter turnout this year, Kitchen highlighted an anecdote out of Temple University: “In 2021, only 30 voters turned out at Temple’s precinct to participate in the supreme court race between Justice Kevin Brobson and democratic challenger Maria McClaughlin. Those numbers jumped to 169 ballots casted in 2023, which was a 563% increase in turnout.“

Biden expected to miss global climate summit opening as young voters question his progress on climate change, Priscilla Alvarez, Ella Nilsen and Arit John for CNN, 11/27

The president is expected to forgo the opening of COP28 this week, which isn’t boding well with young climate activists who were already critical of the presidents actions on climate. According to Alvarez, Nilsen, and John, “a July Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that 57% of Americans disapprove of the way Biden has handled climate policy, including 59% of voters 18-29 years old.” 

“Biden and previous presidents haven’t taken seriously the need to lead on the international stage on climate change,” Sunrise Movement spokesperson Stevie O’Hanlon told CNN about the president’s decision to skip the opening of the international climate summit.

Though the youth-led climate group has concerns about this year’s summit (it’s being held in the United Arab Emirates, known in part for its oil production), O’Hanlon told CNN: “the solution isn’t for the US to turn a blind eye to that.”

What young voters want in 2024, Elena Moore on NPR’s ‘All Things Considered,’ 11/26

On a Sunday episode of ‘All Things Considered,’ NPR political reporter covering young and new voters Elena Moore (one of the few youth vote reporters out there! follow her!) spoke with Scott Detrow about the growing youth share of the electorate and where young people’s priorities lie ahead of a consequential election year. Moore shared her thoughts on why this portion of young voters is different than generations of young voters past (hint: they vote in high numbers). She also emphasized Gen Z’s proclivity for prioritizing issue over party. Moore and Detrow chatted about a generational divide in support for Israel amidst its war with Hamas, the stakes of a rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump — and if young voters focus on issue over party will play out electorally given those circumstances. Moore mentioned a recent conversation she had with 29-year-old Sara Evangelista, a Democrat.

Evangelista said: “As I look at a younger generation, they want someone who checks every single box for them. They want this satisfaction of getting, like, a Sweetgreen salad. The ingredients are perfect, and it is exactly what I want. And I know that that is not the case. There is not often a candidate or an elected official who gets it right with you 100% of the time, but they need to be reflective of your values most of the time.”

This Gen Z Investigative Reporter Is Rocking Conservative Media, Marc Novicoff for Politico Magazine, 11/25

The Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium has made a name for himself as a scoop machine in conservative circles. The 27-year-old Yale grad has written about FDA guidance to divvy up Covid drugs on the basis of race and an initial plan from Columbia Law School that would have asked applicants to submit “video statements” after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, to name a couple of his high-profile pieces. According to Novicoff, a young journalist himself, Sibarium has “become a force on the right who’s drawn praise from conservatives as far apart as Tucker Carlson and David French, who called Sibarium ‘a rising star reporter.’”

Novicoff describes Sibarium as “anti-woke” and says Sibarium stands out amongst other writers on the right because he focuses on, “something different from the conservative hot take-machine: real investigations, seeking out scoops, digging for data. As he sees it, he’s providing a rare service, occupying a narrow journalistic niche: old-school, shoe-leather reporting from a conservative point of view.”

At large, the profile explores what Sibarium (and others) refers to as a “talent problem” in conservative media — stemming from “education polarization,” Sibarium says, and the fact that “so-called smart conservatives don’t go into journalism,” Novicoff writes.