A new Harvard poll of 18-to-29-year-old Americans shows that some elements of President Trump’s agenda have popular support among America’s most liberal demographic: millennials.
Three-in-five young Americans support Trump’s stance on trade issues and agree that he should “crack down on countries that engage in illegal or unfair trade practices that hurt American workers.” Just 13 percent oppose this position. Coincidentally, Trump announced a new wave of reciprocal taxes on Canadian lumber yesterday at a meeting with conservative journalists.
The other major element of Trump’s agenda millennials support is his stance on police, despite the perception that millennials are protestors and think the police are racists. About 48 percent of millennials say they support Trump’s efforts to “end the ‘anti-police’ atmosphere in America and empower law enforcement,” while just 24 percent oppose.
Millennials may also agree with Trump on fake news. Those polled believe nearly 50 percent of the stories in their Facebook feeds are “fake news.”
But not all elements of Trump agenda fared well in this poll. It’s important to note that this poll sampled all young Americans, not just young American voters.
Of those polled, 33 percent of young Americans support repealing and replacing Obamacare, while 45 percent oppose that position. About 28 percent support the temporary ban on six countries in the Middle East, while 48 percent oppose. About 23 percent support the building the border wall, while 50 percent oppose.
Overall, 32 percent of young Americans polled approve of Trump’s job performance, while 37 percent of this demographic voted for Trump last November (again, that’s the difference between polling voters and all Americans). In the Harvard poll, 37 percent of young Americans approve how he is handling the economy.
These numbers reveal Trump has room to grow with younger voters, and the policy area where they agree with him most is one that overlaps with Sen. Bernie Sanders: trade. While Trump’s views on trade may not be popular among libertarians and some conservatives, millennials believe America’s trade policies — many of which like NAFTA and our policies with China were promoted by Democratic presidents — are unfair to American workers.
Can trade move more young voters to Trump? Maybe. However, this could explain why Trump overperformed the 2016 polls with millennials. Red Alert Politics’ average of millennial polls projected Trump to win 25 percent of the millennial vote last November. Instead, he won 37 percent of voters under age 30 — resulting in an additional 2+ million more votes nationwide. He significantly outperformed both Mitt Romney and John McCain with younger voters.
From this Harvard poll, trade and perhaps pro-police policies may have played a bigger role in this 2016 under-polling than prognosticators originally thought.
Ron Meyer (@Ron4VA) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is editor of Red Alert Politics (a sister publication to the Washington Examiner).
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