Is it time for Democrats to panic?
It would seem so. For many years the Democratic Party and many of its leaders were the favored party for young people.
Now two polls show Biden is viewed less favorably than older generations. Add these to show Biden losing support from indepedent voters and it adds to an increasingly grim forecast for Democrats heading into already formidable midterms, plus more likely speculation about whether Biden should run for re-election in 2024.
What is now clear is that Democrats can’t assume young voters will turn out to vote for them in December (no matter what you read on Twitter):
Twice in two days, polling has presented a stark problem for President Biden: Younger Americans view him less favorably than do older ones.
The first poll was from Quinnipiac University. Released on Wednesday, it measured Biden’s approval with those ages 65 and older as about even — as many viewed his job performance positively as negatively. Those under 30, though, were more than twice as likely to view his performance with disapproval.
That’s Quinnipiac, the pollster that Biden’s team once went out of its way to disparage as an outlier. Then, early Thursday morning, new polling from Gallup showed a similar pattern. It was among the youngest Americans, not the oldest, where Biden was struggling most. What’s more, it was with those Americans that his approval had fallen the most over the course of his presidency.
Gallup broke out Biden’s approval into three multi-month chunks. The first covered the first half of 2021. The second, the period last summer when polling found that his approval was sinking. The most recent extended from September through March. Among those older than baby boomers (born in 1945 or earlier), Biden’s approval has been flat across those three periods. Among boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), he lost about 7 points.
As the groups get younger, the decline in approval steepens. By the time you get to Gen Z (born in 1997 or later), his approval is down 21 points since his early-presidency honeymoon.
In its article the Washington Post notes that several factors may explain the big drop:
For example, it may be tempting to point to the administration’s decision not to immediately retire student loan debt. But only a third of those under 30 have such debt, meaning that, for two-thirds of that group, this is probably less of a personal concern.
Gallup’s data doesn’t allow us to drill down on cause. But it does allow us to consider a few confounding factors that probably influence the decline. Consider the changes by race and party.
And:
Some of this is probably a function of some younger adults seeing the Democratic Party (and Biden) as insufficiently liberal on things like climate change or, say, marijuana legalization. Some of this, in other words, is probably pressure on Biden from the left, not the center…..
As The Washington Post reported in January, Black Americans in particular feel as though Biden hasn’t delivered on the things he promised during the 2020 election. The Democratic Party’s apparent erosion among Hispanics has been well documented.
These shifts may be passing but, of course, the timing for the party is bad. Democrats need turnout from Biden voters in the midterms to preserve their slight majorities in Congress. This poll suggests that the age groups that gave Biden his widest margins have grown the most skeptical of his tenure.
Can the Democrats motivate these groups to vote like they voted in 2020? Not impossible — but highly, bigly unlikely.
CNN Poll of Polls
April 5-12
Biden Job Approval (average of four most recent national polls)Approve 39%
Disapprove 55%— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 14, 2022
The Quinnipiac poll I posted is the worst I've seen for Biden for this age group, and of course no individual poll is ever gospel. But I look at this particular number – young people vs. old people – pretty often in lots of polls, and this is not some wild inversion of the trend. https://t.co/FtJPkEol35
— Will Stancil (@whstancil) April 14, 2022
All this talk of young people in polls—low approval for Biden, less support for Ukraine than other age groups, etc.—miss that they have the highest “don’t know” numbers of any age group, by far.
That sounds more like youthful uncertainty or lack of interest than opposition.— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) April 13, 2022
I went to one of the most competitive congressional districts in the country to understand why President Biden seems so unpopular in polls.
Much of our story is about inflation. But an equally important explanation — Young Voters. https://t.co/kdPmkpAdWU
— Asma Khalid (@asmamk) April 13, 2022
The big issue in these polls, though, is how it affects voting in the midterms.
I willing to bet that, though Biden doesn't have much to worry about in 2024 as of now, young folks wouldn't vote much in November regardless of Dem policies.
The over 50 crowd will. https://t.co/YkGXHaY8Er— Paul Bickmore (@PaulBickmore) April 13, 2022
Photo 36086774 © Steve Allen | Dreamstime.com
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.