Ramakrishnan is a freelance journalist covering politics and culture.
Victoria Hinckley was set to graduate earlier this year from the University of South Florida but was instead expelled for participating in an encampment calling for her university to divest from businesses that have connections to Israel.
Hinckley, 22, calls it “an unfortunate situation” but fully believes in the power of student expression. If the past 10 months alone are any indication, America’s young voters are invested in current affairs and passionate in fighting for causes they believe in. This traditionally underestimated and undervalued segment of the electorate is slated to play a pivotal role in the 2024 election, with some saying that the youth vote can impact contested elections across the country.
But are Kamala Harris and Donald Trump aware of just how effective this electorate can be?
Purvi Patel says she hasn’t noticed any targeted strategy toward young voters by either candidate’s campaign.
Patel is director of civic and campus engagement at the Institute of Politics, a nonpartisan organization at the University of Chicago committed to increasing civic participation among young voters.
“Youth voter engagement has always been stereotypically denigrated, and they do turn out at lower rates. Part of this is because academic and other institutions fail to prepare younger people but youth participation is on the rise with recent election cycles,” Patel says.
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The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University released a report in October 2023 stating that 41 million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote in 2024 with 8 million youth aging into the electorate since the 2022 midterms. The report further found that nearly half of the newly eligible voters are people of color.
“Young people in particular in certain swing states have become a decisive electorate that can change the outcome of the election,” Patel says.
Younger generations are now well informed through social media, and some realize they will bear the brunt of policies and elections.
“Younger people are living in changing times, and we are looking to drive meaningful change that benefits our future. Whether it’s America’s attitude toward Gaza or making housing more affordable — we want to see a change,” says Anthony Paul, 25, a graduate student at Georgia Tech.
Age is strongly related to partisanship, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center study. Younger voters tend to lean more left while the Republican Party has more support among older age groups. The study also looks at the intersectionality of race, gender and age to understand partisanship. For example, Black voters in all age groups are overwhelmingly Democrat but younger Black voters tend to be more Republican than older ones.
A strong civics curriculum can encourage students to be more politically conscious and involved.
In May 2024, the American Bar Association released a report that found “31 states require a one-semester high school civics course and only six require a full-year course. The remaining states either require some civics instruction but not as a separate class or have no high school civics requirement.”
Sophie Rivell just began her senior year in a Pennsylvania high school. Rivell believes younger people are seeing how they fit into politics but a boost in civic education could go a long way. If people do not feel educated enough to make political decisions, it could discourage general participation.
“We have government classes but only for seniors, there is no space to really talk about politics. Teachers should be encouraged to talk to students. We haven’t talked about the Israel-Palestine conflict in school and it is one of the most pressing issues today,” Rivell says.
Rivell is the state lead for New Voters, an effort to mobilize high school students to be civically engaged. This year Rivell is helping 200 high schools run voter registration drives and register at least 85 percent of the graduating class or eligible voters.
“That number varies between high schools but in mine, it’s 250 students,” Rivell says.
New Voters was founded by Jahnavi Rao as a high school club in Pennsylvania, and it registered 85 percent of eligible students for the 2018 midterms. Today, New Voters has conducted registrations drives in 500 schools largely concentrated in Pennsylvania and Arizona.
Rao sought to address a disconnect she saw following the 2016 election results.
“There were people who cared about the country but didn’t vote. I’ve tried to address this issue since then,” she said.
According to Rao, there are logistical challenges that young or first-time voters face. Upon graduating high school, some move to other states to pursue higher education, and voting by mail can be challenging and limiting. Secondly, civics conversations are largely restricted to the federal government, which makes it hard to imagine that a single vote makes a difference.
“The youth have grown up in a tumultuous time and have seen a lot of stagnation on issues they care about,” Rao said. “They should be involved because the decisions being made impact them and their generation more than anyone else.”
Colleges can be spaces where young voters develop political affiliations and ideas.
Zackary Lokhard, 21, the president of Southern Illinois University’s Turning Point chapter, got interested in the group after he came across a College Republicans group.
“Voting is the most patriotic thing you can do. It preserves the system. America has never been more divided and youth participation shapes our surroundings from a local to a federal level,” Lockard said.
He pointed out that young voters have been through Trump and Biden administrations and therefore, the choice now is important.
“It’s like a before and after picture,” he said.
So what do they care about?
The think tank Next100 and GenForward, a survey created by University of Chicago professor Cathy Cohen, surveyed young adults (ages 18-40) to assess their civic engagement and political participation levels. Only a quarter of those surveyed think democracy is working well, with three in five young adults saying they’re concerned about the future of democracy.
The war in Gaza is not the most important issue to that cohort electorate. The study found that economic issues top the list of topics young people cite as important in this election. Immigration, reproductive rights and the climate are also featured on the list.
“It’s really important for us to have a say in what’s going on now because it dictates our future. We’re educated and introduced to new ideas so it’s only natural that we question what we have been taught our whole lives. Students have a place in every movement,” Hinckley says.
Students are feeling empowered to stand up for what they believe in — and they are acting in numbers that could tip the election.
