Young voters explain why they're bailing on Biden -- and whether they'd come back

[Dulcinea]

Jayden Camarena, in Northern California, is contemplating blowing off the 2024 presidential election. Evan McKenzie, in battleground Wisconsin, is looking for any other candidate than the current front-runners. In Philadelphia, Pru Carmichael isn’t even convinced this race matters.

These young voters live in different cities, work different jobs and have varying political beliefs. But among the things they have in common: They voted for Joe Biden in 2020 — and now say the president can’t count on their support in 2024.

“I genuinely could not live with myself if I voted for someone who’s made the decisions that Biden has,” said McKenzie, a 23-year-old working at Starbucks and as a union organizer in Madison, Wisconsin. “I didn’t even feel great about" voting for Biden in 2020, he said.

The feeling helps illustrate why Biden’s ratings and support among young voters have dipped noticeably in recent polling. In November, NBC News’ latest national poll showed Biden locked in close competition with former President Donald Trump at the moment for voters ages 18-34, a sharp drop from the margins Biden enjoyed over Trump in the 2020 election, according to exit polling.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/young-voters-explain-re-bailing-biden-whether-d-come-back-rcna130186

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. I can say this because they will never see it

FUCKING IDIOTS.

[Duncanpup]

10. Exactly

[Blues Heron]

2. talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

“I want to show the Democratic Party as a young person that you still need to earn our vote and if you don’t, the consequences will be your career,” McKenzie said. “A Republican getting elected isn’t the end. It is the beginning of a much larger fight.”

[Fullduplexxx]

4. Hey it's 2010 all over again

[emulatorloo]

13. 2016 all over again too.

[Ritabert]

3. I don't believe it

Has NBC gone looking for disgruntled young people to back up their premise? I trust no polls. Perhaps they should ask who's trying to erase student loan debt even though opposed by the whole Republican congress. Or who wants to take away women's right to control their own healthcare. Or who decriminalized federal marijuana convictions. Unless they're masochistic they'd be a lot worse off under Trump as would all of us.

[Igel]

16. You want to see where your former supporters are faulting,

you don't ask the cheerleaders and the cheerleader coach for rah-rah statements saying all's wonderful. You don't want a chorus of Pollyanas.

Nor do you want a chorus of Cassandras.

You ask those who were supporters and are faltering why they're faltering. It's hard, and my students only want me to be a Pollyana while they're mostly Cassandras, but it's the "in the middle" that matters.

[Timeflyer]

5. Did they ask any young women who they'd be voting for? Because if they don't vote for Biden,

welcome to Gilead.

[Fullduplexxx]

6. I genuinely could not live with myself if I voted for someone who's made the decisions that Biden has,"

Like what Skippy? What's the one issue which Biden didn't do your personal bidding ?

[TwilightZone]

7. I wonder if they're the same ones who think the Holocaust is a myth.

Half of them either think it's a myth or aren't sure.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218512833

"Some 20% of respondents aged 18-29 think that the Holocaust is a myth, compared with 8% of those aged 30-44 (see chart). An additional 30% of young Americans said they do not know whether the Holocaust is a myth."

[kacekwl]

8. I am not going

to bother to read the link. This same article is FRONT PAGE on yahoo news and didn't read that either. Some shit about inflation, the Hamas war and broken campaign promises. What utter nonsense. If anyone has read the link does it offer any explanation ? So tired of seeing stories like this. Young people, Muslims, Jews, Hispanic blah blah against Biden.

[cayugafalls]

9. BS, media manipulation at it's finest.

Turn off the news.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

11. Then enjoy the fascism

You WATBs.

The world doesn't revolve around these diddums, but they'll get to find out the hard way how much it can and will suck when a moronic dictator is in charge of their lives.

What utterly stupid people.

[DavidDvorkin]

12. Pure idiocy.

[LymphocyteLover]

14. I imagine there are lots of young people like this and they are truly clueless

[lees1975]

15. Not buying this.

I volunteer in my precinct to make phone calls and do canvassing, and we're not seeing any of the "young people leaving" nor much in the way of criticism of the President's age. The message that we're getting is a woman's right to choose her own health care and the danger to Democracy posed by Trump's candidacy are huge driving forces motivating voter registration. Democratic voter registration is surging.

Of course, it's not a scientific "poll" to be calling the active and inactive voter lists of the Democratic party, and we don't run into anyone who plans to vote for Trump, but it's much rarer these days to run into someone not planning to vote than it was in 2016. And it's been easier to get positive responses from people on the list of voters whose registration has lapsed because of inactivity. And many of the volunteers, more than in the past, are younger people who are willing to get on their cell phone and make calls and texts in the evenings.

The NBC piece was sure a good way to pitch progressive issues, though. How do you compare thorough exit polling with a random polling sample that has been "factored" by questions aimed at determining likelihood to vote and party preference? You can't. And since networks only cite their own limited polls, you don't get to see the data that the candidates are collecting, or that marketers and other pollsters, who don't paint quite the same picture, are also gathering. You just get the reporters singling out a few disgruntled and uninformed voters.

[NNadir]

17. I see this claim as media "concern trolling."

I don't think the media is capable of speaking for a generation.