Young people are lukewarm about Biden – and giving them more information doesn’t move the needle much

Adobe Stock Photo by Neil O’Brian, University of Oregon and Chandler James, University of Oregon Recent polling for the November 2024 election shows that President Joe Biden is struggling with young voters, who have traditionally supported Democrats. A December 2023 poll showed that 49% of young people supported former President Donald Trump, while just 43% of 18- to 29-year-olds said they preferred Biden. Biden is even struggling with young people who identify as Democrats. A Fall 2023 Harvard Kennedy School poll shows that just 62% of Democrats aged 18 to 29 years old said they would vote for Biden in 2024. Many Democrats are increasingly anxious that young voters who supported Biden in 2020 will boycott the general election in 2024, support a third-party candidate or vote for Trump. Polls this far from Election Day are notoriously variable and not reliable for predicting election results. Furthermore, some political pundits are asking whether young voters will return to the Biden coalition once the campaign season heats up and they learn more about the two candidates. As scholars of public opinion and the U.S. presidency, we are deeply interested in the prospect of young voters, particularly Democrats, defecting from the Biden coalition....