President Joe Biden is underperforming among young voters who are concerned about their economic plight, recent polling shows.
Fresh out of left-leaning academic institutions, young voters are typically a demographic that overwhelmingly supports Democrat candidates. Biden won 61 percent of voters under 30 in 2020.
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The 2024 election cycle could produce different results. In Biden’s America, many young voters face severe challenges of burdensome student debt, an expensive rental market, increased costs via Biden’s inflation, and credit card debt.
Below is the percentage of young voters in 2024 who listed Biden’s economy as the top issue, a Gallup poll released Monday found:
- Ages 18-29: 47 percent
- Ages 30-49: 43 percent
- Ages 50-64: 28 percent
- Ages 65+: 19 percent
The percentage of young voters who see Biden’s economy as a top issue in 2024 is drastically greater than in 2020:
- Ages 18-29: 11 percent
- Ages 30-49: 18 percent
- Ages 50-64: 15 percent
- Ages 65+: 11 percent
Biden is bleeding support among young swing state voters, according to a March Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. Trump leads among the demographic in swing states by seven points (47-40 percent). In 2020, Biden won 61 percent of voters under 30 in 2020.
One reason for the shift appears to be the impact of the pandemic.
“They had a more severe impact of Covid itself in a direct economic way,” Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, Newhouse director of Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, told Bloomberg. “Whether it’s gas, or housing, or rent or health care, they’re having a really hard time having affordability for that because of the lack of stored wealth.”
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The White House argues that wages increased under Biden’s leadership, but that only represents half the story, Bloomberg reported:
Much of those wage increases have also been eaten up by higher rent costs, which rose about 18% between October 2020 and January 2024, according to Redfin. Buying a property is increasingly out of reach for many young adults, with home prices up 21% over the same period, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Swing-state voters ages 18-34 are more likely than any other age cohort to list housing costs as important for their vote in 2024, according to the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll.
Debt is also souring some younger Americans’ views about the economy, according to EY Chief Economist Gregory Daco. Adults in their twenties and thirties have higher rates of credit-card debt that have deepened into serious delinquency, meaning the debt is 90 days or more past due, according to data from the New York Fed.
Many young adults are making payments on federal student debt that they had hoped would be forgiven by Biden’s plan. The White House has used more narrow methods to approve nearly $144 billion in forgiveness, targeting specific groups, including those with disabilities, some former for-profit college students and public servants who have been paying their loans for years.
While young voters struggle to gain financial freedom, U.S. Federal Reserve data revealed Thursday that the wealthiest one percent in Biden’s America set a record with a net worth of $44 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter.
A majority of Americans still live paycheck to paycheck, a recent LendingClub study found, raising concerns that so-called “Bidenomics” failed to help average Americans.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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