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The new matchup between Trump and Harris is helping Democrats close the enthusiasm gap, in part by capturing the attention and interest of young voters who historically vote at lower rates than older generations. But the historic nature of Harris’ candidacy as the party’s first Black woman and South Asian presidential nominee, coupled with the rapid shift in the campaign’s tone, has young voters of all political stripes taking a hard look — some for the first time — at the role they could play in November.
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If motivated, Gen Z voters could have a major impact on elections. Texas’ population has the second youngest median age of any state, other than Utah. And in 2020, there were about 1.3 million Texans ages 18 to 24 who were registered to vote. Those voters have historically turned out to vote at rates lower than any other age range, with voter participation rates increasing steadily as age ranges increase.
About 43% of young Texans aged 18-29 voted in 2020 — an eleven point increase from 2016. 66% of all eligible voters and 76% of eligible voters age 64 and older voted that same year.
Look at that. Young people excited to vote. It’s almost as though all the party needed to do was run a better candidate.
One thing I’ve always hated about these articles (and by extension, this whole topic) is all the factors that are left out of the discussion. Like when people talked about Millennials not protesting like they did in the 60s, they conveniently ignore how things have changed for Gen X and younger - how more economically tenuous and unstable living conditions are, how senior jobs are still filled with Baby Boomers that would’ve retired a decade earlier had they been their parent’s generation, how job benefits have declined (like time off), etc. Older people vote more not just because “young people are lazy,” as so many of these discussions insinuate, but because they have better economic security, more time either through retirement or better job benefits, and more knowledge of the process. We won’t see major shifts in Gen X and younger voting turnouts until we can improve work/life balance, because the Boomers pulled the ladder up after them and left the rest of us to slave away for 50 hours a week with no vacation time.
For someone who hasn’t voted before, showing up in a primary with a random date is a lot harder than showing up on a single, nation-wide election day.
Also Texas youth voter turnout has only gone up since 2016, and was instrumental of the purpling of Texas during both 2020 and the previous midterm elections. You’re pulling the classic of blaming the younger generation for something that is not their fault.
Eat some avocado toast while educating yourself maybe.
Where have I blamed anyone for anything? You and the other poster are tilting at windmills getting you knickers into a twist over things nobody has said.
I’m just old enough to have heard all of this many times before. But sure, I’m the one that needs educating. 🙄
I’m all for optimism and I truly hope Texas goes blue. But I bet you it won’t.
You’re right. Fuck 'em. The only people who we should ever attempt to appeal to are decrepit conservative fossils. No one else will ever matter and boomers are immortal so we’ll never need anyone else, so earning the resentment of multiple generations is something we can get away with.
Ngl if Texas and Florida go blue, it will be
- hilarious
- the death knell of trumpism
- perhaps also the death knell of the GOP as a viable party
If, and that is a huge if, Texas goes blue, Abbott and Paxton will 100% call it fraud and make Texas send Trump electors. There is 0 doubt in my mind on this. Things will get bad very quickly, because if Ttump loses Cruz lost in a blowout and a dem senator from Texas is paramount to heresy
Oh yes. Guaranteed constitutional crisis, I think. Which is wild to say about what should be the world’s leading democracy.
United States democracy fell on Jan 7th, 2021 which is when the filthy fascist traitor should have been immediately arrested and tried.
IDK, every time I’ve thought the GOP was done, it clawed it’s way back out of the still open grave.
You are right on one thing, it has been done. That is, it’s not the same party as before. If MAGA types had come up during Reagan, you better believe that the GOP would have denounced them. That party is dead, something new is here now. The question is really how long the party that uses the name GOP will survive.
It’s a nice dream but sadly I don’t think one that will happen this election. Gerrymandering and vote suppression has already seen to that.
Gerrymandering doesn’t apply to most state’s presidential elections, it applies to congressional house maps, not electoral votes
* technically Maine and Nebraska split votes by congressional district but they are kind of the exception here
Other forms of voter suppression in the presidential election though are certainty going on there to be fair
Fair, though there is more being voted on this election than just the president. A lot of other political offices and referendums are up for vote and gerrymandering contributes to the widespread mentality that minority votes in a given district don’t matter, even for the presidential election.
2020 had the highest voter turnout in US history, but that was still only 2/3 of eligible voters showing up at the polls, so 1 in 3 people (and usually it’s more than that) decided it wasn’t worth it likely because of that sense of futility caused by gerrymandering taking their political voice away.
Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering can be pretty brittle. It relies on accurate models of who will vote and for whom. If the underlying assumptions are either wrong or change, then it can backfire. Here’s an extreme napkin-math example to illustrate the point:
You have 3 districts. Candidate A is extremely unpopular. You split the voters to get 2 out of 3 districts for candidate A.
District 1:
Candidate A: 5%
Candidate B: 50%
Not Voting: 45%
District 2:
Candidate A: 20%
Candidate B: 15%
Not Voting: 65%
District 3:
Candidate A: 25%
Candidate B: 20%
Not Voting: 55%
As you can see, even though if you add up all the voters for candidate B they heavily outnumber candidate A’s voters, by siloing them into one district you can win. But look at the margins for the other 2 districts. It doesn’t take many new voters who you assumed wouldn’t vote to upset your scheme. Depending on exactly how unpopular your candidate is, the margins for this might be pretty tight. It only takes an extra 10% of the voters moving from not voting to candidate B to cause a landslide 3 district sweep in this example.
After Trump’s meltdown over not winning Georgia I would pay good money to see him react to Blexas.
I’ll say it again Harris needs to really campaign harder in Texas. If she beats Bidens last vote total (in Texas) by a million votes I think she’ll take the state and that’s basically a guarantee to win the whole thing. I think state leadership is also overconfident in our “leans red” status and they aren’t trying nearly as hard as other states to suppress votes. If the gap gets close but Trump still wins Texas I guarantee they’ll make the next four years about stomping out blue opposition.
I think it is possible both Texas and Florida are actually in play come the election. Conventional wisdom focuses on the battleground states, but conventional wisdom would have picked Shapiro over Walz and we see how that went. I think you are right, and I hope the Harris campaign is bold and ambitious here.
Now bear in mind - actually flipping Texas sounds like an almost guaranteed constitutional crisis. But that’s a problem for the future.
We Floridians voted for Obama twice and we’re driving youth and women to the polling booths with abortion and weed on the ballot.
Given the above comments about the possible/likely constitutional crisis, it would be better to win those states but not rely on winning them to take the race. Best to assume that they are going to try pulling out all of the stops they can to steal this election and Florida and Texas are two states that are most likely to lean into that.
So she should try to win them but not at the expense of anywhere else.
If she gets only 630,000 more votes than Biden, she will have beaten Trump’s votes in 2020. That’s less than 5% of the registered voters in 2020.
Polls open Oct 21-Nov 1 and then one final day on Nov 5. If you vote early, there wont be a line! Polls will be open at least 9 hours the first week and at least 12 hours the second week and final day of voting. Check voter registration status, polling locations, hours, Election Dates, and more at
even if doesn’t flip, i’m all for turning red states into a bluer shade of purple, it delivers its own message
