Biden’s approval rating has declined across the board among Democrats, but numbers with people under 30 are falling.
A New York Times-Siena College poll this week found that 94 percent of Democratic voters ages 18 to 29 say the party should nominate someone other than Biden in 2024.
Biden, 79, has never been a candidate for younger Democrats, though they have rallied to help him win the White House in 2020 as the president has endorsed key progressive policy initiatives to tackle climate change and other issues.
Now polls show they could abandon him altogether amid frustration over the lack of progress in Washington on everything from climate change to abortion rights.
“Many of the young people I’m talking to specifically right now are asking what’s the point of having a democratic trifle if our rights are still being eroded,” said Ellen Siales, director of communications at the youth climate activist group. the East Movement.
“So what’s the point of voting? And obviously we’re pushing people to vote, but it’s going to make it a lot harder for us to do our job,” he said.
Biden received high marks from young voters early in his presidency. But a Gallup poll released in April found that Biden’s approval rating had dropped 21 percentage points among Americans who belong to Generation Z — those born between 1997 and 2004 — and 19 percentage points among millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 — between the beginnings of his presidency and last March.
A big focus when it comes to Biden and young voters is the president’s age. He would be 81 at the start of a second term if re-elected.
But Biden’s job performance, not his age, is the dominant issue driving young Democrats to prefer someone other than Biden in 2024, according to the New York Times-Siena College poll.
New Democrats in the poll were the least likely to cite Biden’s age as the main reason for wanting new blood.
“I think it’s about issues regardless of age,” said Democratic strategist Eddie Vail.
He and other Democrats note that Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), two progressives, were popular in 2020 with many young Democratic voters.
“Remember when you love [the late Sen.] Was Robert Byrd hot when he opposed the war? And Bernie is clearly no spring chicken. But young people face the same general financial issues that everyone faces, but it’s worse for them because they don’t have savings, a house, career stability, etc.,” Vale said.
He and others argue that Biden could improve his standing among younger Americans by taking more tangible steps to protect abortion access after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Biden announced an executive order last week intended to protect access to abortion drugs, contraception and emergency care and protect women who travel out of state for abortions from lawsuits.
Ashley Aylward, director of research at the public opinion firm HIT strategies, said she held a focus group last week — before Biden’s executive order — in which young Democratic voters said they were looking for more tangible action on abortion.
“They’re really just looking for reasons to feel some relief that people in power are actually fighting for them,” Aylward said.
In general, Aylward observed that New Democrats are looking for more diversity in their representatives in government.
“Young voters — since we were talking to them even in 2020 — they want to see people who look like them running,” he said.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has highlighted several programs aimed at attracting the youth vote ahead of November’s midterm elections. The DNC said it has launched a “social ambassador program” to train young volunteers on social media and plans to host youth voter education sessions starting in late July, with the inaugural event featuring Warren as a guest speaker. Party machinery is also organizing on campuses in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin.
And the DNC joined TikTok earlier this year in an effort to reach more young voters through new forms of media.
Some say concerns about Biden and young voters are overblown and not a sign of disengagement ahead of the midterms.
“His numbers overall reflect the mood of the country, and that can certainly change,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau, who served as an aide to the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “I think that can and will change.”
A poll by the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School in April concluded that youth midterm turnout in 2022 was on track to match the increase in turnout during the 2018 midterms.
“Biden was underwater with young voters in 2020, and we had the highest youth turnout in American history,” said Christina Jinjun Ramirez, who serves as president of the youth advocacy group NextGen America.
But this was a different kind of election, when Democrats were motivated to unseat former President Trump, who like Biden will not be on the ballot this fall.
“During the election, even if these people weren’t crazy about Biden, they hated Trump and that’s why they voted. But now it’s different. They hurt financially. They want things to be better,” said one Democratic strategist.
External advocacy groups will also be critical in the medium term. Tzintzún Ramirez said NexGen America is organizing on more than 180 college campuses and running a “micro-influencer program” to tap young leaders with big platforms to help mobilize the Democratic base.
Some, like Sciales, argue it’s critical for Democrats to pass some version of the climate and social policy legislation — formerly known as Build Back Better — that Biden ran on, but Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va. ) torpedoed in December. Biden needs every Democratic senator to carry the bill with him in order to get it through a process known as fiscal reconciliation that allows Democrats to bypass the GOP’s war-mongering.
Democrats revived talks on a watered-down version of the bill, but Manchin appeared to dash hopes of a breakthrough Thursday when he told Democratic leaders he would not support new spending on climate initiatives or tax increases in the package.
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Biden also faces a decision on whether to announce more student debt relief, a policy popular with voters and on the left. The Policy Institute poll found that 85 percent of young Americans favor some form of government action on student loan debt, although only 38 percent approve of writing off the debt entirely.
“Young voters are overwhelmingly progressive. They want to see bold structural changes to climate change, to the economy, and to look at things like canceling student debt, raising the minimum wage, and taxing the rich their fair share,” said Jinjun Ramirez. “And young voters care about racial justice.”
Updated at 7:49 am
