A pollster at the Harvard Kennedy School said voters under the age of 30 are the reason many Democrats won in the midterm elections.
QUICK FACTS:
- John Della Volpe, director of polling for the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, said Gen Z overwhelmingly voted for Democratic candidates in the midterms, crushing ‘red wave’ predictions that were circulating before voting began.
- “If not for voters under 30… tonight WOULD have been a Red Wave,” Volpe tweeted Tuesday night. “#GenZ did their job.”
- Volpe predicted young voters would bring victory to Democrats a week prior to the election on MSNBC, based on what he saw in his surveys.
- The polling among 19 to 29-year-olds showed 40% said they would definitely vote, while only 25% said they would probably or definitely not vote.
- The same poll found that young people were more likely to vote for Democratic candidates than Republicans.
HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL POLLSTER JOHN VOLPE ONE WEEK BEFORE THE ELECTION ON THE RISE IN GEN Z VOTERS:
“I’m not sure whether we’ll see a red wave or a blue wave in a couple of weeks,” Volpe said. “I am positive we will see a Gen Z wave, especially in the battleground states.”
BACKGROUND:
- President Joe Biden praised young voters Wednesday, saying the age group helped make the election “a good day.”
- “And I especially want to thank the young people of this nation, who – I’m told, I haven’t seen the numbers – voted in historic numbers again and just as they did two years ago,” the President said. “They voted to continue addressing the climate crisis, gun violence, their personal rights and freedoms, and the student debt relief.”
- According to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), an estimated 27 percent of the United States between the ages 18 and 29 cast their ballot in the midterm election.
