The Youth Vote, Explained in Deep Detail

The youth vote at work.Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal via ZUMA

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What’s with the youth vote, anyway? Every four years the kids seem really excited, but then they don’t turn out to vote. What’s going on?

The answer is surprisingly simple. When we think of the “youth vote,” the image that almost certainly pops into your mind is a 20-year-old college student wearing a Bernie cap and leading campus rallies against sexual violence. They care about social justice, climate change, and trans rights. But even if college students vote in large numbers, they make up only a small percentage of the 18-29 population. There are roughly 17 million undergrads enrolled in two- and four-year colleges right now, compared to a total population of 54 million. That’s 30 percent.

The other 70 percent are all working stiffs. You won’t see them in the pictures used to illustrate stories about “what young people are thinking today,” but they constitute by far the biggest share of this demographic—and to put it gently, they probably care about different things than your typical university undergrad. This is the real youth vote, and that makes them the voters we need to target. But do we?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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