Most young people aren’t liberals

We have the same concerns as the rest of the electorate

Today’s post is from friend-of-the-newsletter Milan Singh, a partisan hack at Blueprint, and an opinion editor at the Yale Daily News. He is also a sophomore studying Economics and History at Yale and was previously Slow Boring’s researcher.

---

Joe Biden is losing ground with young voters.

In 2020, Biden won 60% of voters aged 18-29, compared to 37% for Trump and 3% for third parties, according to figures from Catalist. The most recent New York Times/Siena poll of the battleground states shows that Biden is losing young voters 43-46 to Trump, with 11% breaking for third-party candidates. Adam Carlson, a Democratic pollster, has aggregated the crosstabs of 12 nonpartisan, national head-to-head polls released in February, and he found Biden up 52-40 over Trump, down from his 24-point margin in 2020. 

This trend should not be dismissed. The election is going to be close, likely decided by tens of thousands of votes across a handful of swing states. In 2020, 66,000 votes between Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Nebraska’s second congressional district put Biden over 270 in the Electoral College. With margins that narrow, any slippage could cost the president re-election; in 2016, young voters broke 55-34 for Clinton over Trump, with 10% voting for third parties. 

But media coverage of Biden’s issues with young voters tends to frame the dynamic as one in which Biden’s underperformance with younger voters is part of a revolt from the left. The Times’ write-up of their recent polls argues that they “reveal an erosion of support for the president among young and nonwhite voters upset about the economy and Gaza.” A recent CNBC article declared that “Biden’s weakness with young voters is spurred in part by the ongoing tensions over the Israel-Hamas war.” Here’s a podcast episode, and an op-ed, and another op-ed from a Twitter micro-celebrity making the same argument.

That’s why Blueprint recently fielded a national survey of 943 voters ages 18-30. Our goal was to figure out what young people care about, what they think about the issues that are important to them, and how Biden can earn their votes. I also interviewed five of the guys I grew up with (because Democrats are having a particularly acute problem with young men) about their top concerns for the country, who they plan to vote for in November, and why.

I’ll spoil the conclusion for you now: us kids care about the same stuff as everyone else— and we’re not as universally left-wing as cable news paints us to be.  

The median young voter is a moderate

As regular readers know, most Americans self-identify as moderate or conservative, and this self-identification is actually significant; voters who describe themselves as liberal are much more likely to support progressive policies than those who call themselves moderates or conservatives. 

What you might not know is that the same pattern holds true for young people. When we asked them to define their own ideological position, 31% of young voters in our poll said they were moderate; 36% define themselves as some degree of liberal (21% very liberal); and 33% define themselves as conservative, including 12% who said they were very conservative. 

No matter how you slice the demographics, the median young voter self-identifies as a moderate. Even among college-educated young people, only one-third (33%) self-identified as very liberal — and 50% identified as conservative or moderate. 

Conversations with other young men

I also reached out to five other men in their early 20s to get their perspective on the issues that matter most to them.

• Gabe Taylor is a rising senior at Northeastern University studying Media and Screen Studies. He’s lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts for his entire life and told me that his political views are “fairly progressive, and overall comprise common sense ideas” and that he “pretty much always votes Democrat.”

• Felix Delaney Sire describes himself as “Franco-American” — “born in Cambridge and raised there for most of my life, although I lived in France for a few years in my childhood.” He recently graduated college in Europe, and is the co-founder of a Berlin-based ready-to-drink alcoholic beverage startup. He considers himself “progressive by American standards, especially on social matters” but “more moderate on economic ones.”

• Shishir Khanal was born in Nepal and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, when he was 3 years old. After moving to Acton at the start of high school, he is now a student at Manhattan College, where he studies Mechanical Engineering, concentrating in Aerospace and Applied Mathematics.  “I would say that I am an independent, much of the views I hold are a product of what I believe is best for our country as a whole”, he told me. “I don't like to be too ideological because I feel that it tends to cloud judgment.” 

• Melaku Mohammed, a student at Boston University majoring in data science, describes his political views as “diverse.” “In some aspects such as social policy, I would say I hold a large variation of liberal, moderate, and conservative views,” he explained. “In other areas, though, like economic policy, I lean more toward moderate or liberal approaches.” 

• Finally, one of my best friends, who I am not naming due to security concerns, is an active-duty Army Ranger. He also grew up with us in Cambridge, and told me that he considers himself “conservative and right leaning on most political issues.” 

Only two of them said they are likely to vote for Joe Biden in November. 

“I don’t plan on voting in the fall, but that’s because I will be out of the country and I’m registered in Massachusetts, which is clearly going to go for Biden,” Gabe told me. “If I were to vote, it would most definitely be for Biden.” Felix said that he would vote for Biden, because “it’s a citizen’s duty to vote for his political representatives and I don’t want Trump in office.”

Melaku is also planning to vote for Biden, despite some concerns about the president’s age. 

“I generally like his economic policies, such as raising the minimum wage and aiming to rebuild the middle class and minimize the income inequality within this country,” he said. “Although there are major concerns by many voters (including myself) about his age and competence, I think he has shown that his age has yet to affect the policies he has signed. To explicitly compare Trump's and Biden’s characters though, Trump has had a multitude of scandals, which is one of the bigger reasons why I plan to vote for Biden.”

Shishir is planning to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “because my values align with many of his. He values his physical health very much, he works out and is in amazing shape for his age. I think this says a lot about a person and their discipline.”

“I don't want to see Biden or Trump back in office, neither of them show what I want in a leader,” he explained. “The president should be someone that the people can look up to and know they are strong, trustworthy, and will ultimately do what best helps the people of America.”

My Ranger friend said that he’s “likely to vote for Trump this fall, because he is the most likely candidate to succeed for conservatives.”

It’s the economy, stupid

None of my friends mentioned Israel-Palestine as one of their top issues.

• Melaku’s were “not in order, climate change, education, affordable housing, healthcare costs, and transparency in taxation within this country.” 

• “Abortion and the economy are the biggest for me,” Gabe told me. “I think there is a lot at stake for both of those issues on the presidential ballot this year, and I’m worried that if Trump wins there will be massive losses on both fronts.”

• Shishir’s top concern was “the health industry, specifically big food, and big pharma.”

• Felix said that “the most important political issue for me is the economy” in addition to climate change, noting that these two matter so much more than anything else that “I don’t care enough to look into policy specifics by party other than knowing their general vibe.”

• My Ranger friend’s top issues were “gun rights, national security and taxes and government spending.” “What worries me about the economy is mostly the increased cost of living/inflation”, he texted me, adding that he “would like to see government spending improved.”

This lines up with what we found in our Blueprint poll, where the most frequently prioritized issues by young people were inflation (chosen 73% of the time), healthcare (71%), jobs and the economy (70%), and government spending and the federal deficit (63%. The least important issues to young voters were China (27%), college (37%), LGBTQ issues (38%), student loans (38%), and Ukraine (39%). Israel-Palestine, at 52%, was solidly in the middle of the pack. 

Young people generally see Biden as ideologically closer to themselves than Trump.

And they see him as closer to their views on almost every issue, from abortion and birth control (Biden +12 over Trump) to student loans (+11) to election integrity (+11) to Social Security (+7).

Except for the economy.

When we asked what voters would most like to see improved in the economy, voters overwhelmingly picked lower prices.

Crucially, young people see Trump as more aligned with their economic concerns than Biden.  Just 13% of voters think Biden is most focused on lowering prices; 40%, including 42% of Democrats, 37% of independents, and 43% of Republicans, say he is most focused on more jobs. But 32% say Trump is most focused on lowering prices, and the same share, 32%, say Trump is most focused on creating more jobs. When asked which candidate they trust more to reduce prices, 52% say Trump. 

Shishir worries that “average working class citizens will be unable to provide basic needs for them and their families.” 

“I was not into politics during Trump’s time in office and only got into it recently,” he told me. “But from personal experience, I think the country was in a much better place under Trump and there are many factors that go into that.”

Melaku was most worried about inequality. 

“The growing wealth disparity between social classes concerns me as I fear it can lead to our society feeling uneasy, or potentially cause tension between the lower and upper classes”, he told me. “Generally, I would like to see policies that make taxation on ‘the rich’ fairer, while also making sure that funds are being allocated to closing the growing gap, in areas like education, affordable housing, and supporting small businesses for example.”

Felix and Gabe were more focused on the job market. Felix said that he “worries about employment rates because people in my family worry about employment.” 

“The job market is terrible right now, but I’m not sure what can be done about it”, Gabe told me. “I know that the US has managed to do a lot better with inflation than most other countries after COVID, and I’m not familiar with other countries’ current job markets. But if there is a way to stimulate more jobs right now, we need it. Students and recent graduates are really feeling the stress of not being able to find work that pays enough for comfortable living outside of their parents’ home — not to mention work that is fulfilling.”

Prices are more pressing than Palestine

We asked respondents to list their top concerns for both potential Trump and Biden’s second terms. The top fears about what Trump would do if elected are cut funding for Social Security and Medicare (61%), cut taxes for the rich but not working- and middle-class families (59%, and highest among Latino voters at 71%), and ignore military leaders and act in dangerous ways that threaten national security (58%). 

When asked the same about Joe Biden, young voters’ top concerns are age (72%), inflation (65%), and that he would be too pro-Israel (61%). 

My Ranger friend texted me that what worries him most about a potential second Biden term was “his overall lack of competence/cognitive ability that leads to poor decision making.”

It’s important to note the distinction between issues where young people have different views than older voters and issues that are salient for young people.

It is true that polling shows that young people are generally less pro-Israel and more pro-Palestine than older generations. But that doesn’t mean that Israel-Palestine is determinative of their vote choices, at least not for the large majority of us. 

Luca Girodon, one of my classmates at Yale, is a rising junior studying Global Affairs. He’s French-American (born in Paris), the son of two war reporters, and says that “great power competition with China, the war in Ukraine, human rights, and the situation in Gaza” are his top concerns for 2024. He considers himself “quite left-leaning, especially by American standards,” and has some issues with Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza. But he’s adamant that he will vote for “the candidate who hasn’t stated that he would be a dictator on the first day of his presidency.”

“Trump has repeatedly talked about ‘finding a solution to Ukraine in 24 hours’, and told us that he would let Russia do ‘whatever the hell they want’ with NATO countries who fail to meet budget requirements,” he said over text. “A Trump presidency will most likely mean an end to major aid to Ukraine, which in turn will lead to a Russian victory. This would only embolden Putin to continue his destructive path westward.”

While 56% of young people have heard about recent campus protests, 83% said that they have not attended any recent demonstrations or other public events about Israel or Palestine. Young people are split 51-49 on whether political leaders are focusing the right amount or too much on campus protests. And while 34% think that politicians and the media are not concerned enough about Israel and Palestine, 49% think that they’re not concerned enough about high prices. Just 14% think politicians and the media are too focused on high prices, compared to 23% who say the same about Israel-Palestine.  

Mainstream media exaggerates our differences

To close out the interviews, I asked my friends what they think the mainstream media gets most wrong about young people. Almost all of them pointed to the narrative that young people are a monolithic, liberal bloc.

Shishir told me that he does not watch mainstream media “because they have a history of dishonesty, and because of that I don't have much to base an opinion on how they portray the young voters.”

“I believe that mainstream media tends to exaggerate just how ‘radical’ young voters are,” Luca texted me. 

“What the mainstream media gets wrong about young voters is that we are all overly progressive/radical,” my Ranger friend texted. “Most young people I know are moderate on most things.”

“Most young voters are regular people who want common sense policies and no lies and corruption. I think young people are often portrayed as emotional or angry about things,” Gabe told me. “I think the kids have a right to be angry because the system is not working for them like it did for earlier generations, while simultaneously their problems are ignored by the much older demographic in politics. They are no less informed than the average voter and their voices need to be heard more.”

“​​The idea that we all walk in unison. Although anecdotal, I have personally seen the most extreme viewpoints on political issues from individuals my age,” Melaku said. “Just like the rest of the voting population, we hold varying ideologies, so it may be best not to approach us all as the typical liberal college student.”

“I think the mainstream media thinks young people care more about social issues than they actually do. That being said, I think that goes for everybody,” Felix told me. “Young people also think other young people care more about social issues than they actually do. This is a collective illusion.”

I asked my Ranger friend what he remembered about the Trump presidency, and how he felt politics had changed since then. He texted me: “I remember during the Trump presidency that the media was a circus every other day. My impression of politics from before Trump was that Americans were generally more civil towards political issues/opposition. The change I noticed is the average American being less decent towards anyone they disagree with right or left.”