A recent poll, commissioned by ASU’s Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy and conducted by Noble Predictive Insights, provide a lot of good information for candidate who are trying to attract the support of under-30 voters.
The poll surveyed members of the Z generation, people under age 30. The results are not surprising at all, especially for those who have been watching people’s opinions for a long time.
The main takeaway from this poll is that folks under age 30 have a different perspective than those over 30, but that has been the case for quite some time. We have seen evidence of this as early as the 1960’s. Those familiar with that era may recall two very noticeable characteristics of the under-30 population at the time. One was the mantra that no one over 30 could be trusted. The other was an affinity for protesting. Public demonstrations were commonplace, and so were expression of dissatisfaction, as evidenced by the art and the music of the period. One example of this may be found in the hit song For What It’s Worth That mindset manifests itself throughout this poll.
The foregoing notwithstanding, candidates who wish to attract the vote of this Gen Z portion of the electorate would do well to pay attention to the results of the poll. The information therein falls into five categories.
- Voting Attitudes: The top five responses are typical of people in this age group. Responses six through eight present a huge challenge for candidates. How can anyone get a fair shake from a group in which over half, 57% of its members think that all politicians are corrupt? It gets worse. Among those who had an opinion, about half believe that elections are not fair and do not reflect the will of the people.
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- Important Issues: If candidates for office want to attract those Gen Z folks, then they must address those issues that are most important to them. The task is made somewhat easier because many of the issues that are important to Gen Z members are issues that are important to most voters of any age. The old Carville/Clinton expression that it is the economy, stupid is as true here as everywhere else. In this poll, it was the cost of living and affordable housing, both parts of the overall economy issue.
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- Ballot Initiatives. The results of this poll should be a clear warning to Republican candidates who wish to garner the support of the Gen Z crowd. In all but one issue, the Republican Gen Z members were the least likely to be motivated to turn out. Worse, the one issue which favored Republicans was keeping partisan primaries, which was the lowest in terms of encouraging voter turnout.
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- Barriers to Voting: The results here are quite interesting. There was only one response which candidates can do something about. It was response number two, indicating there is no one to vote for. Candidates could remedy this by informing voters better about their positions. The next two responses, nothing changes and my vote does not count, appear to be deeply engrained in the minds of these folks, perhaps even more than this poll shows. A common theme found in social media is that there is no difference between candidates of different parties and that elections are rigged.
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- Incentives to voting in the general election. This section of the poll is different in that these young voters answered in a way very similar to most voters, both young and old. It seems that voters of all ages are asking the same question. What is in it for me?
