Soaring rents a top concern for younger voters

Pollsters and political analysts have of late twisted themselves into contortions trying to figure out what top priorities are for young voters, a key constituency in the neck-and-neck race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. The explanation is likely much simpler: The rent is too darn high.

Housing costs, and a languishing U.S. economy more broadly, turn out to be a much bigger concern for voters ages 18-29 than those often cited in news reports, such as climate change and Israel’s defensive war against Hamas in Gaza, even as this group strongly favors Biden over Trump, per a recent poll by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.