News — One of the biggest stories of the 2024 presidential election was young voters’ apparent shift toward voting for President-elect Donald Trump. According to exit polls, youth ages 18-29 preferred President Biden to Trump by 24 points in 2020, but backed Vice President Harris over Trump by just 4 points in 2024.
Less talked about, but even more significant to our civic health, is the fact that youth voter turnout dropped from over 50% in 2020 to 42% in 2024, from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), one of the research centers focused on democracy at Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life, where I serve as dean.
That drop in participation, which mirrors overall voter turnout, reverses recent trends among young voters. Now a new post-election poll of young people, conducted by our CIRCLE team, helps to explain why–and could serve as a roadmap for the work ahead to fully re-engage youth in our democracy.
The new analysis makes two things clear. First, young people are driven to vote (or not) by issues, not influencers. Forty-six percent of youth said they voted to have an impact on issues; less than 1% because they were motivated by a celebrity. They remain profoundly committed to taking action on the myriad issues they care about–especially, the economy, health care and climate–and playing a leading role in the civic life of the country.
Secondly, they are deeply dissatisfied with our flawed democracy, which they see as unresponsive to their needs and ideas. And when our politics–and our candidates–don’t live up to their expectations, they are liable to stay home on Election Day.
None of this is completely new. We have known for years that young people have abysmally low trust in institutions like Congress, the courts, and political parties. We also know that young people continue to face barriers to political participation stemming from a lack of access, outreach, and support.
In our survey, more than a third of young people, and almost half (48%) of youth without college experience, were not contacted by any type of political or community organization about voting in 2024. Among youth who weren’t registered to vote last year, 26% said they either missed the deadline, had trouble with forms, or simply didn’t know how.
Economic struggles are also playing a role. More than 40% of young people said that they sometimes or often find it difficult to meet basic financial needs. Among youth who didn’t vote, 62% report struggling financially. It’s no surprise, then, that economic concerns were top of mind for youth. In fact, young people who didn’t vote were even more likely to prioritize inflation and jobs than young people who cast ballots, suggesting that economically disadvantaged youth are getting left further behind in our democracy.
All of those numbers are an indictment of a weak and inequitable civic engagement infrastructure that is still leaving out too many young people.
We know how to solve some of these problems. Stronger nonpartisan civic education in schools. Facilitative policies like automatic voter registration and same-day registration. And a renewed focus on electoral outreach to young people that treats them as essential stakeholders, not as unlikely voters who are at the bottom of campaigns’ priorities.
All of those efforts would strengthen youth voting; in fact, when and where they happen, research shows they already do. But we must also grapple with the fact that young people’s disenchantment and disconnect with democracy runs deeper, and will require far bigger transformations to our system.
When asked about the main reason they didn’t cast a ballot in 2024, 20% of respondents who didn’t vote said it wasn’t important to them, and 24% said it was because they didn’t like either of the candidates. Those were the most common reasons for not voting.
These are the warning signs of a potential democratic crisis. If the nation’s youth continue to lose faith in our political system, and in the choices that system presents to them, the American experiment itself is at risk.
That crisis cannot be addressed by tinkering around the edges. It must be confronted with a wholesale reassessment of how we do democracy. It requires an inclusive approach that reaches all potential voters. It demands a commitment to centering young people’s views and voices in leadership opportunities–across the political spectrum–on the issues at the heart of our national conversations, and on the minds of candidates who end up on the ballot.
It’s easy to fixate on the movement of groups of voters in a close election. It is certainly interesting to ask: why did some young people shift toward Donald Trump? Or where did youth turnout decrease in this or that county or state? But the real questions that should keep us up at night are: first, are young people giving up on democracy? And second, what should we do about that?
Dayna Cunningham is the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University.
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