The 2024 election on Nov. 5 is approaching quickly, and young voter turnout will have a large, if not decisive impact on election results, therefore determining how issues important to younger generations will play out in their future.
Senior Sinéad Nagubadi is voting for the first time, and she knows that young voters’ proximity to current issues plays a crucial role in the election.
“I think we have an outlook that is fresh and new,” Sinéad said. “We’re the new generation of voters, and we’re building our own America for the future.”
Like Sinéad, almost 42 million members of Generation Z, current 18-27 year olds, will be eligible to vote in this election, enabling them to voice their opinions on important issues through the candidate they support. Several key topics in this election include climate change, education, student loan debt, the economy, gun violence, abortion and the Israel-Hamas war.
“Young people have to come out and vote because these are the decisions that impact them more than anyone else,” Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois secretary of state, said in an interview with the U-High Midway during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.
David Hogg, a gun control activist and student survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, said in an interview with the Midway at the DNC that young voters have a critical role.
“The problem is, we’re not going to hear about the shooting that doesn’t happen, right?” Mr. Hogg said, “so what I would tell young people to do is to make sure you hold your politicians accountable. Like Frederick Douglass said: ‘Power concedes nothing without demand.’ Young people are there to demand.”
The presidential election could vastly change the future of activism around gun violence. Mr. Hogg emphasized the importance of young voters’ election decisions, and how these decisions were made after the Parkland shooting.
“That’s why we were so effective after Parkland,” Mr. Hogg said. “We said, we want to elect morally just leaders that fight for us, fight for our values, protect us in our schools, and make sure that we have a safe future where school shootings are left in the history books and not in our headlines.”
Like Mr. Giannoulias and Mr. Hogg, Jon Favreau, former director of speechwriting for Barack Obama, highlighted the gravity of young voters this year during a DNC interview with the Midway.
“I feel very hopeful that young voters are going to turn out in big numbers — hopefully, potentially decide this election,” Mr. Favreau said.
Sinéad has observed the excitement among students in her community, like herself, who are voting for the first time.
“From the community that I know of people who have just turned 18, I think a lot of people are really excited to vote,” Sinéad said. “But, to be fair, that’s also a very small outlook given that we’re in Chicago, in a very blue state with a lot of voter education.”
In the 2020 presidential election, the impact of young voters was seen in astonishing numbers. An estimated 50% of young people voted in that election, which was a sizable increase from the 36% turnout in 2016.
As with the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Favreau believes young voters will make the difference again, and he encourages young people to make sure it does.
“I hope that every young person out there understands the choice in this election, how important it is,” Mr. Favreau said. “And if you’ve already decided that you’re registered and you’re ready to vote and you’re ready to go knock on doors for Kamala, that you then go out and find five friends who might not be registered and do everything you can to persuade them to come out and vote.”
