What You Need to Know About Politics 4/22
My analysis of the new Harvard Youth Poll & a boatload of links.
I’ve been quiet the last month. The crush of the two busiest weeks of my work year was followed by Congress’s Easter recess and a period where there wasn’t much to say. Last week was packed with news, but also a lot of uncertainty, especially on Capitol Hill, and I wanted to wait to see how things shook out before weighing in (more on the mess that is the House of Representatives later in the week as it becomes clearer whether hardliners will force a vote on a motion to topple House Speaker Mike Johnson).
One part of my busy work season was hosting two events at Penn that were deeply insightful conversations about the state of politics. The first was with Alyssa Farrah and Sarah Matthews, who both worked for Donald Trump and are now outspoken about his unfitness. The other was with former congressman Joe Walsh and activist Fred Guttenberg on the importance of dialogue across ideological lines and the peril facing American democracy. Both events are worth watching.
Before diving into the 64 links that I’ve accumulated over the past two months from 28 different sources, as well as eight tweets and one quote that jumped out at me in a story on Congress, I want to take a deep dive into the new Harvard Youth Poll.
In short, the hotly anticipated biannual poll was the latest bit of optimistic news for Joe Biden and Democrats — albeit with some cautionary notes. Some headlines may point to the decline in Biden’s support from young voters between the spring of 2020 and the spring of 2024, as well as the fall off in support for Democrats among young men. And it’s true that Democrats need to focus on young men and how to connect better with them.
But there are far more reasons for optimism in the poll. First, among all 18-29 year olds, registered voters, and likely voters, former president Donald Trump’s support remains steady at 37%. That’s basically the same support he got from young voters in 2020 when exit polls revealed that 36% of 18-29 year olds backed the former president.
So in so much as Biden’s numbers are worse now than they were in 2020, it’s not because young voters have flocked to Trump. Instead, it seems more likely that some of the president’s 2020 voters are disillusioned with Biden — but out of reach for Trump. That reality indicates that Biden has an opportunity to win those voters back through messaging, addressing issues they care about, and outreach.
The poll also found that a roughly similar percentage of young Americans will definitely be voting in November as said they would definitely vote in the spring of 2020 (53% vs 54%). That challenges any narrative of bitter young voters sitting out, which could cost Biden the election.
All of these results indicate that Biden’s troubles with young voters have been overstated.
The data also is the latest in a series of polls indicating that Biden’s biggest problem is with fairly politically disengaged voters who don’t show up to vote in every election. Biden leads by 19 points among likely voters, 13 points among registered voters, and only eight points among all 18-29 year olds. That’s beneficial because there is no guarantee that non-likely voters — especially those who aren’t registered — show up in November. It also raises another positive possibility for Biden: most non-likely voters aren’t paying a lot of day-to-day attention to politics. Some of them, however, will tune in come September or October. That will create an opportunity for the president’s campaign to correct misperceptions they may hold about Biden, or educate them as to parts of his record that they may not know about, but which they’ll like.
Things would be far worse if Biden’s struggles were with likely voters among this crucial demographic, because they tend to be the most tuned in, and would have the most firmly formed opinions.
The commentariat has paid a lot of attention to the growing gender gap among young voters, specifically Democrats’ weakness with young men. While Biden’s numbers with likely young female voters are almost identical to what they were in spring of 2020 (+33 vs. +35 in 2020), his standing has plummeted with likely young male voters (+6 vs. +26 in 2020). The data is similar in terms of party identification: In 2020, 42% of young men identified as Democrats vs. 20% who identified as Republicans. That has dropped to 32% Democratic vs. 29% Republican today. Meanwhile, Democrats have actually made gains with young women. In 2020, 43% of young women identified as Democrats vs. 23% who identified as Republicans, whereas today those numbers are 44% Democratic vs. 18% Republican.
This finding substantiates other polling data about Democrats’ troubles with young men. But there is actually a lot of encouraging underlying data in the Harvard poll. Because while young men aren’t identifying as Democrats in the same numbers and aren’t as supportive of Biden as they were four years, they do appear to be fairly liberal on most issues — though nowhere near as liberal as their female counterparts.
The number of young men who think basic health insurance is a right for all Americans only dropped from 64% in 2020 to 60% now, and 54% of young men still believe that the government should spend more to combat poverty, a drop of a mere two points from 2020. On another polarizing topic, 47% of young men agreed that government should do more to curb climate change vs. only 29% who disagreed. On social issues, 44% of young male respondents disagreed with the idea that same sex relationships are morally wrong vs. only 31% who agreed, and a plurality took the more liberal side in most of the battery of immigration questions.
These issues positions indicate that Democrats can improve their standing with young men through good messaging, outreach, and leadership on issues these voters care about. They haven’t necessarily flipped ideologically, which would indicate that they’re out of reach.
Overall, while the poll results provided more good than bad for Democrats, there are warning signs: on many issues, 18-24 year olds are more conservative than 25-29 year olds (though this seems to be more true on cultural issues than economic ones). Democrats need to figure out why, and how to address this shift.
Additionally: a majority or plurality favored the conservative side on questions about school choice and whether recent immigrants have done more harm than good. Maybe most troubling for the blue team: 42% of respondents saw tax cuts as an effective way to stimulate increased economic growth vs. 20% who disagreed, whereas only 29% saw government spending as an effective way to increase growth vs. 26% who disagreed (interestingly, on both of these questions, young women were actually more conservative).
That’s bad for Democrats, of course, because they’re the party that sees government as a force for good, whereas tax cutting has become almost a religion for Republicans. The finding also indicates that, despite ample evidence that Republicans’ vision of trickle down economics doesn’t work as promised (see the link below on a new study), it remains compelling — even with the youngest voters — decades after Ronald Reagan first sold this theory to the electorate. Unless and until Democrats change the public philosophy, they’re going to struggle to enact their agenda without paying a political price.
I also noticed one cross tab that is problematic for Democrats as both the socially liberal party and the party whose backbone is African American voters. When asked if same sex relationships were morally wrong, white, AAPI,Hispanic, and mixed race respondents all disagreed by large, similar margins: 31 points for white and AAPI respondents, 33 points for Hispanic respondents, and 37 points for mixed race respondents. By contrast, Black respondents only disagreed by a 34-29 margin. This indicates that young Black voters may be more conservative on critical cultural issues at a moment when Democrats have moved to the left on these issues.
The full data from the youth poll is linked below, as is data from another recent poll, which shows that the dichotomy between likely voters and voters who turn out less often exists among the entire electorate as well.
I’ve also linked to data from another poll taking a deep dive into another important demographic — older women. At this point in the election cycle, polls like this that focus on important populations or that point to discrepancies among more engaged and less engaged Americans are far more important than horserace polling, and that’s reflected in what I’ve linked.
Because there are so many links below, I’ve sub-divided them even further than usual to make it easier for paid subscribers to find articles of interest. There is a section with 16 stories on 2024, one with seven links on abortion — which might be the most important/newsworthy issue right now — sections on national politics, the media, public policy, and more. In each one, I’ve bolded a couple of must read stories. Topically, I’ve included reporting on everything from Christian nationalism, to the presidential race, to crucial new research on pharmaceutical companies’ claims about drug prices, to the anti-semitism problem on some college campuses.
There are also crucial stories on why Americans remain so pessimistic about the national economy despite feeling pretty good about their personal finances and their states’ economies, the housing crisis (and how to solve it), the perils facing the U.S. internationally, and the way doctors change how they practice medicine after a state bans abortion
If you’re interested in state level politics, there are stories from Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Washington, Arizona, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. They span every level of politics, and are precisely the sorts of stories that often fly below the radar.
The tweets include several from scholars bringing their expertise to bear on some of the polling data that has commentators making bold — but largely unfounded — predictions about Republicans’ inroads with traditionally Democratic constituencies.
The quote of the week captures the essence of why the House has barely functioned this year — Republicans simply aren’t realistic about their predicament and only seek Democratic help grudgingly and on must pass stuff.
After this mammoth edition, I plan to go back to posting links columns every couple of weeks along with an increasing amount of analysis as election season really kicks into high gear.
The links:
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