Young Voters Hold Power and Cynicism
posted by Chief Copy Editor, Emily Newton | November 10, 2016 | In NewsYoung voters, also known as millennials, are voters between the ages of 18-35. Young voters in 2016 will comprise about 31% of the overall electorate, according to Pew Research Center. This is a vast increase compared to the 2012 election when young voters aged 18-29 were only 19% of the electorate. Young voters have the potential to influence this year’s elections. The question is, will they show up to do so?
In the last presidential election, only 46% of young voters showed up to vote. A 2016 survey completed by Reuters/Ipsos found that 52.2% of young voters aged 18-34 were certain or almost certain to vote in this year’s election.
Charity Baldwin, FSU senior, admits that the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees “could be better”, but she still plans to vote for one of them in this year’s election. “It’s worse not to vote at all,” she explained. “It’s like, if you’re hungry, you may not like the meal choices, but it’s better to eat than to starve.”
Carol Jenkins, junior, disagrees. “I’m voting, but I’m not voting for Hilary or Trump. I’m not comfortable choosing either one, so I’m not choosing-period. I hear that not voting for one is a vote for the other. The way I see it, not voting for either is not a vote for either.”
Whether or not Clinton or Trump will be able to draw young voters out for the election remains to be seen.
“This generation has never trusted the government, Wall Street or the media less,” John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, said of the millennials. “That’s likely to result in turnout of less than 50 percent and of those who do turn out, there is still a deep cynicism regarding the impact of their vote, whether or not it will make a difference.”
Millennials match Baby Boomers as largest generation in U.S. electorate, but will they vote?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/20/more-young-people-voted-for-bernie-sanders-than-trump-and-clinton-combined-by-a-lot/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-millennials-idUSKCN12O1X8
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.