High young voter turnout in crucial US midterms; youth prefer Democrats over Republicans

Young voters, including first-timers, turned out in large numbers at polling booths this Tuesday and voted for the Democrats, which many experts believe is the reason for the better-than-expected performance of the ruling party led by President Joe Biden.

The Republicans, headed by former president Donald Trump, have made some progress in the House of Representatives while the vote for the Senate is on a knife edge.

The Democrats are trying to hold on to control of the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress. Before Tuesday's election, the Senate was split 50-50 but the Democrats had control through the casting vote of vice-president Kamala Harris.

While the Republicans have won 210 seats in the 435-member House, President Biden's Democratic Party has so far got 192 seats. In the race for the 100-member Senate, the Republicans have so far won 48 seats while the Democrats have 46, according to US media outlets.

Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) from the prestigious Tufts University said on Thursday that it estimates that 27 per cent of youth (ages 18-29) cast a ballot in 2022, making this the midterm election with the second-highest youth voter turnout in almost three decades.

“We also estimate that youth turnout was even higher in some battleground states,” it said.

CIRCLE also estimates that in a group of nine electorally competitive states for which exit poll data is available, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, - the aggregate youth voter turnout was 31 per cent. These are early estimates of youth voter turnout that may shift in the coming days.

After hovering around 20 per cent turnout in midterm elections since the 1990s, young people shifted that trend in 2018 and largely maintained it in 2022, with more than a quarter of young people casting a ballot.

“Youth are increasing their electoral participation, leading movements, and making their voices heard on key issues that affect their communities,” it said.

Another exit poll revealed that the youths voted more in favour of the Democrats. According to the Edison Research National Election Pool exit poll, the national youth vote choice for the US House of Representatives was 63 per cent for the Democrats, 35 per cent for the Republicans.

“That’s almost identical to 2020, when youth preferred Democrats to Republicans by 62 per cent to 36 per cent, and a small shift in favour of the Republicans from the previous midterm in 2018, the youth vote between Democrats and Republicans was 67 per cent to 32 per cent—which was the largest margin ever for Democrats among young voters,” it said.

In his nearly two years of administration, Biden, 79, the oldest President in US history, has taken several measures that are protecting the interests of the youth. The most important of them is his decisions on student debt.

Interestingly, according to this exit poll data, youth ages 18-29 are the only age group in which a strong majority supported the Democrats. Voters ages 30-44 split their votes nearly evenly 51 per cent to 47 per cent between the Democrats and the Republicans, while older voters favoured the Republicans.

The survey said in recent years, young people of colour—especially Black and Asian youth—have offered the Democrats extraordinary support, while white youth’s vote choice has been more evenly split.

“That was again the case in 2022: 89 per cent of Black youth and 68 percent of Latino youth voted for a Democratic House candidate. Among white youth, the vote was 58 per cent for the Democrats and 40 per cent for the Republicans,” it said.

According to CIRCLE, in close races decided by a few percentage points, young voters’ double-digit vote margin for Democrats can swing a race in which older voters backed the Republican candidate.

For instance, in the Pennsylvania Senate race, where Democrat John Fetterman won by a slim three per cent margin, youth ages 18-29 years preferred Fetterman 70 per cent to 28 per cent compared to 55 per cent to 42 per cent among voters aged 30-44, with voters over 45 preferring Republican candidate Dr Oz, it said.