Dem
50
GOP
50
A new Harvard Youth Poll has Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump 60% to 32% for likely voters 18-29. It also has some other interesting data points. One important one is that the decision to vote depends on peer pressure. When someone believes his or her friends will vote, 79% will also vote. But when one's friends are not interested in voting, that drops to 35%. On the whole, 58% of voters under 30 say they will definitely vote. Half plan to vote on Election Day, up from 37% in 2020. Only 12% plan to vote early.
The gender gap among young voters is enormous. Harris leads by 30 points among women and 10 points among men. Also, men are less likely to vote than women, which could make the actual gap bigger. Harris knows this and is appealing to women all day and every day. Trump knows this too, and is appealing to men at sports events and other places where men gather. In the battleground states, Harris' lead is smaller than nationally, namely 50% to 41%, with 1% for Jill Stein and 1% for Chase Oliver.
Another important result is that only 20% of young Americans expect a peaceful transfer of power after the election. If there is anything that characterizes a banana republic (other than growing bananas) it is the lack of a peaceful transfer of power after a (disputed) election. Welcome to Bananaland.
The same poll was held earlier this year, so the new results can be compared to the first one. Among white men, there has been a 20-point swing toward the Democrats. Among nonwhite men, Trump has picked up 7 points. Among white women, Harris is doing 9 points better than Biden. But among nonwhite women, the surge for Harris is immense, with 70% for Harris (vs. 36% for Biden earlier). This is consistent with many other stories about nonwhite young men moving toward Trump but all other young voters moving toward Harris.
Harris leads on all the issues, but there is a lot of variance depending on the issue. On abortion it is Harris +41, on strengthening the working class it is Harris +25, on immigration it is Harris +12, on the economy it is Harris +11, on Gaza +4. Across most issues, Trump does better among registered voters than among likely voters. His campaign knows this and is trying hard to get marginal voters to the polls. The problem is that they are marginal voters for some reason they think is important. (V)