--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Noel King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noel King.
--:-- Noel King: Today, we're talking about the 2022 midterms and the role of young voters. We're joined by Maren Kogan, a senior correspondent at Vox. Maren, thanks for being here.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Noel King: So, let's start with the basics. What counts as a youth voter?
--:-- Maren Kogan: Generally, we're talking about voters 18 to 29.
--:-- Noel King: And what do we know about what youth voters meant to and in and for the 2022 midterms?
--:-- Maren Kogan: So, there's some early disagreement over whether these young voters swung elections or whether they played a more modest role. One thing we know for sure is that they strongly favor Democratic candidates.
--:-- Noel King: And that's the second highest turnout that this age group has had in at least 30 years, just second to 2018, when about 31 percent of them showed up.
--:-- Maren Kogan: In this case, about 27 percent of them showed up.
--:-- Noel King: And there is some evidence to suggest that in really key races across the country, that strong preference that they have for Democrats might have tipped some candidates over the edge in key races and given Democrats hard-won victories.
--:-- Maren Kogan: These estimates are all based on exit polls, some of which speak to voters as they're coming out from the polls, and some of which don't actually solid data on how people voted.
--:-- Noel King: The census will release more solid data on voting behavior, but it often takes weeks or months to get that.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And the numbers that we have now will be revised when we get that more solid data.
--:-- Noel King: There is strong evidence in places like Pennsylvania. Young voters strongly preferred John Fetterman.
--:-- Maren Kogan: It looks like they preferred him 70 percent to his opponents 28 percent.
--:-- Noel King: In that case, Fetterman won the race by about 4 percent.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Huge breaking news. Democrat John Fetterman has won the Senate race in Pennsylvania.
--:-- Noel King: Folks, this is amazing news for the Democratic Party.
--:-- Maren Kogan: This was also a Democratic pickup. Previously, Republicans held the seat, but now it's flipped to the Democrats and John Fetterman.
--:-- Noel King: In the Wisconsin governor's race, it was the same deal. 70% preferred Tony Evers, the incumbent Democrat, over his Republican opponent.
--:-- Maren Kogan: He won by about 3%.
--:-- Noel King: Y'all, compared to 2018, the Wisconsin youth vote is up 360%.
--:-- Maren Kogan: It's happening.
--:-- Noel King: It also appears that young voters strongly prefer the Democrats in Arizona who are running for senator and governor.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And ultimately, both of those candidates, Mark Kelly and Katie Hobbs, won.
--:-- Noel King: Hey, Carrie Lake. My name's Kate. Just want to let you know I'm going to go drop off my ballot and I'm not voting for you because you're kind of a douchebag.
--:-- Maren Kogan: But, yep, no conspiracy, no fraud, just not voting for you.
--:-- Noel King: So, there is evidence to suggest that they strongly prefer the Democrats in these key races.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And where they did prefer those Democrats, they narrowly won their elections.
--:-- Noel King: Do young people traditionally strongly prefer Democrats?
--:-- Maren Kogan: Like, was 2022 different?
--:-- Maren Kogan: So this is a somewhat new trend, but there is evidence that these voters are more solidly liberal than previous generations were at their age.
--:-- Noel King: If you go back and you look at elections in the late 90s and early 2000s, for example, it was a much more even split with young voters.
--:-- Maren Kogan: It was pretty evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.
--:-- Noel King: That divide in young voters preferring Democrats really opened up in 2004 and 2008.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And that divide has been growing since.
--:-- Noel King: But what we've seen in the last 20 years is that more young voters now who are strongly preferring Democrats.
--:-- Maren Kogan: Do we know why?
--:-- Maren Kogan: I think it's because some of the issues that these young voters are ranking as their top choice issues and the issues that motivate them and get them to the polls are climate change and issues like gun reform.
--:-- Noel King: And, you know, those are two issues where there is a really stark divide in terms of what each party is offering or saying about those issues.
--:-- Maren Kogan: By what margin do people under 30 prefer Democrats?
--:-- Maren Kogan: Yeah, so the estimates are that 63 percent of young voters preferred Democrats.
--:-- Noel King: 63 percent of young voters prefer Democrats.
--:-- Maren Kogan: It's not an overwhelming number.
--:-- Noel King: It's not an overwhelming number, but when you start to break it down, those divides get even more stark.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And it is basically across every category of young voters.
--:-- Noel King: So white young voters, Black young voters, Latino young voters, Asian young voters, men, women, they all favor Democratic candidates.
--:-- Maren Kogan: But when you break it down even further, you know, an estimated 87 percent of Black young voters voted for Democrats.
--:-- Maren Kogan: 67% of Latino youth favored Democrats.
--:-- Noel King: It's even smaller for white voters. They were about 57% for Democrats.
--:-- Maren Kogan: But, you know, this generation, both of these generations, millennials and Gen Z, are larger and they're much more diverse.
--:-- Noel King: So if there are more of them voting, it can be a real boon for Democrats.
--:-- Maren Kogan: We would have had a red wave, actually, if not for younger people.
--:-- Noel King: Between 40 and 49-year-olds, Republicans won by seven points, 50 to 64-year-olds, they won by nine points, and they won by 12 points among people over the age of 65.
--:-- Maren Kogan: That's a red wave, but it's a red wave among baby boomers.
--:-- Noel King: Maren, if it's the case that more young voters turned out in 2018, why is everyone making such a big deal about turnout this year?
--:-- Maren Kogan: I think the major reason that you're seeing all of this excitement is because Democrats do recognize that this is a huge potential source of electoral power for them, and that if young voters turn out, they can become an incredibly important voting bloc.
--:-- Noel King: With the power to transform our politics.
--:-- Maren Kogan: So some of the excitement is about the fact that there is huge power when this group decides to vote.
--:-- Noel King: And I think there's excitement about getting more of them to vote in future elections.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And so what is the Republican Party response to this?
--:-- Noel King: I think you're going to see a lot of soul searching in the months ahead about how to win these voters.
--:-- Maren Kogan: It should have been one of the biggest red waves we've ever had because, you know, President Biden's approval rating was so low, one of the lowest historically, more than 70% of the people thought the country was going in the wrong direction, and yet we still didn't perform.
--:-- Noel King: Frankly, I think it's going to be very hard.
--:-- Maren Kogan: You know, the issues that these young voters rank as their priorities, climate change and gun control, are ones where the Republican Party is not offering them much.
--:-- Noel King: And another thing that a lot of young voters cited was abortion.
--:-- Maren Kogan: So you have one party who is actively trying to restrict reproductive rights, and you have another that's vowing to try to protect them.
--:-- Noel King: There's not a lot that Republicans are currently offering to this age cohort, so I don't quite know where they go from here.
--:-- [Theme music starts playing]
--:-- Noel King: What do you think the election of Maxwell Frost, the first generation Z member into the Congress, tells us, other than we're all getting older?
--:-- Maren Kogan: This is a generation that is not waiting for permission.
--:-- Noel King: And when you think about the way that young people have mobilized and organized around the issues that they really care about, again, those issues like climate change and gun control, you've seen them be able to make a difference in politics already.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And you've seen that they're not waiting for their turn.
--:-- Noel King: So I think, if anything, Maxwell Frost's election is evidence that we're going to see more of these young people running and not waiting, not sort of coming up the old-fashioned way necessarily.
--:-- Maren Kogan: I mean, I think there will be several of them doing that too.
--:-- Noel King: But I think we should expect to see more of them running in future elections.
--:-- Noel King: Today's show was produced by Siona Peterous, who is indeed a youth, and it was edited by Matt Collette.
--:-- Maren Kogan: It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard.
--:-- Noel King: It was engineered by Efim Shapiro.
--:-- Maren Kogan: And I'm Noel King.
--:-- Noel King: It's Today Explained.
--:-- [Theme music continues to play]
