Young voters who have been critical to Democratic successes in recent elections have shown signs that their enthusiasm for Democrats — and President Joe Biden — may be waning.
That’s good news for former President Donald Trump.
David Pepper, a lawyer, writer, adjunct professor, and Democratic political activist, thinks he has a theory on what could be a seismic shift.
Rage in politics has become normalized.
He posted to X:
Overall, I agree that all that we’re seeing from Trump is not “normal.” And we should not let it become normalized.
With one caveat….as a 19-year old student corrected me a few years ago when I told a group of college students that what we were experiencing w Trump wasn’t “normal”… “
Mr. Pepper, for us, this is normal. It’s all we’ve ever seen.”
She was right.
All the younger generations have seen is insane politics and right-wing extremism, from birtherism (when many were not even 10) to today.
We’ve got work to do to show these generations what normal even is, or could be…because they’ve never seen it.
Voters under 30 went 53% for Democratic House candidates compared with only 41% for Republican candidates nationwide in the 2022 mid-term elections, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping national survey of the electorate. But that level of support for Democrats was down compared with 2020, when such voters supported President Joe Biden over his predecessor, Donald Trump, 61% to 36%. And in 2018, when Democrats used a midterm surge to retake control of the House, voters 18 to 29 went 64% for the party compared with 34% for the GOP.
Weakness in any part of that voting bloc could have implications during the next presidential race.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.
