In the midst of all the bad news being splattered in our faces every day as a consequence of the results of the 2016 election, a new poll by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics shows that 72 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds disapprove of Donald Trump. The poll also shows they prefer that Democrats win a majority in Congress in this fall’s midterms, and there is an increase in the percentage who say they plan to vote come November.
Campaign ActionThe findings come from the institute’s 35th National Youth Poll. Specifically, 37 percent of all respondents under 30 said they will definitely be voting in the midterms, and another 16 percent say they probably will. That compares with 23 percent who said they would definitely vote in 2014, and 31 percent who said so in 2010.
And young Democrats? Fifty-one percent of them say they will definitely vote in November.
John Wagner reports:
Preference for Democratic control of Congress has grown between now and the time of the last IOP poll. In Fall 2017, there was a 32-point partisan gap among the most likely young voters, 65 percent preferring Democrats control Congress, with 33 percent favoring Republicans.
Today, the gap has increased to 41 points, 69 percent supporting Democrats and 28 percent Republicans. “Millennials and post-Millennials are on the verge of transforming the culture of politics today and setting the tone for the future,” said John Della Volpe, Polling Director at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. “This generation of young Americans is as engaged as we have ever seen them in a midterm election cycle.
Those results give progressives another reason for optimism about the upcoming election, which many observers—experts and professionals alike—have been characterizing as a potential blue wave or even a blue tsunami, sweeping Republicans out of office in some jurisdictions where Democrats haven’t run candidates in years.