Young voters might love Bernie Sanders, but young people in general remain apathetic about the election, like they have for decades.
Organizations and pollsters talk about how important the youth vote is, but they tend to delude themselves about the reality of how many people under 30 actually vote. Young voter don’t vote nearly as much as their parents and grandparents, and it’s a pattern that verges on a scientific law.
Even with the heated rhetoric and surprises of the 2016 election, Kevin Drum notes for Mother Jones that millennials still respond, like generations before, with an empathic “meh” to the ballot box.
“They’re the least engaged of all groups, and the election hasn’t done much to change that. Their enthusiasm is up a few points from December, but that’s all,” Drum said. “Millennials in college are a lot more engaged—the women, anyway—but millennials in general aren’t showing much more enthusiasm than usual even though they’re starting from a low base.”
Reporting on young people overwhelmingly focuses on college students, but they’re still not a majority of young people. They vote more than their non-college friends, and that can skew the perception of the public, or journalists, on millennial voting habits.
Millennials hold political opinions, and more participation from them could have positive effects for economic opportunity and limited foreign intervention. However, with how dominant older generations are at the booth, it’s a collective action problem. Until millennial voting comes close to doubling, their actions as a demographic won’t sway politicians or interest groups.
They might feel the Bern, or jump on the #NeverTrump bandwagon, but the age demographics overwhelm their preferences. That’s good news for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but bad news for election results that represent the future instead of the past.
