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In nearly every Midwestern battlefield state that mattered to Trump’s re-election, the president fared worse among younger voters than in 2016, according to a POLITICO review of state exit polls. Trump ceded ground in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two states he lost. He also regressed to Arizona, another critical condition that escaped.
In several of these states, erosion has been considerable. In Pennsylvania, President-elect Joe Biden won the young voters by a 20-point margin, compared to Hillary Clinton’s 9-point advantage in 2016. In Wisconsin, Biden won the youngest voters in the State by a 16 point margin, a dramatic increase over that of Clinton. razor-sharp in 2016 – and significant change in a state Trump lost by only 20,000 votes. Michigan experienced a four-point change from 2016 to 2020.
“It’s not that Joe Biden electrified young people, it’s that there has been a failure to connect with as many young people as we could possibly have,” said a Trump ally who is heavily involved in raising awareness among young conservatives.
For Trump’s critics, Biden has gained ground with younger voters because of the identity of his opponent: a divisive politician with a playbook of culture wars who has failed to energize audiences outside of its base. But among campaign aides and allies of the president, the consensus is much less clear. Interviews with more than a dozen people involved in Operation Trump 2020 revealed divisions, acrimony, and a system in which no one would take the blame but everyone had a scapegoat – from the president himself , to the countryside to outside groups like Turning Point USA, Charlie The Conservative Kirk Campus Organizing Group.
The fallout has left the GOP with a dearth of information on what went wrong with Gen Z and Millennial voters – especially in a cycle where Trump has seen gains with other demographics – and no strategy clear to prevent a new surge in youth support for Democrats in 2022. midterm elections. And the Republican Party is in desperate need of a strategy to turn the tide, after decades of struggling to connect with younger voters.
“The Republican Party has no future if it does not improve its performance among younger voters,” said Michael Steel, a GOP strategist and former senior aide to House Speaker John Boehner.
“I’m not a fan of the top-down autopsy processes,” Steel added, “but I hope the end of the Trump presidency is a natural inflection point and a time to restart to some extent.”
Some Republican agents involved in the 2020 cycle have said that the way young voters, who are strongly Democratic, currently perceive the GOP will automatically improve once Trump is out of power.
They said the president’s inflammatory approach to issues such as race relations, which became a major cultural hotspot this summer, likely cost the party the support of young conservatives who may have been reluctant to support Trump and are less ideologically rigid than their older counterparts. these subjects.
For example, a post-election study by Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University showed that 60% of Trump voters aged 18 to 29 think racism is a “somewhat or very serious problem”, compared to 52 % of Trump. voters over 45. Similar shortcomings emerged when young Trump voters were asked about the importance of climate change (52% said they were ‘worried’ versus 40% of older Trump voters) and their self-proclaimed identity (61% self-identified as Conservatives vs. 74% of older Trumps voters).
Those same party members also criticized Trump for failing to polish his message in the rare instances he appeared in front of a younger audience in the general election.
At a campaign event in June in Phoenix, Ariz., Where the president spoke to several hundred “Students for Trump” activists, he spoke about 401 (k) retirement funds, the choice of the school and stock market gains – questions that resonate more with older investors, those planning for retirement and their parents.
“Your 401 (k) s, I don’t think you wanted anyone else to play with them because you’re pretty much at an all time high, and you put the wrong person in, they’ll be erased”, Trump told a group that had probably never dealt with a 401 (k).
Others have criticized the Trump campaign, accusing the president’s top aides of “outsourcing” his youth outreach program to Turning Point Action, the political action arm of conservative campus group Turning Point USA.
Led by its 26-year-old founder Charlie Kirk, the group has overseen a myriad of door-to-door and grassroots voting efforts this cycle, in addition to working with key White House officials as the advisor. Principal Jared Kushner to plan events. which put the president and his substitutes in front of a young audience. Those involved in Kirk’s operation claimed that his “Herculean” efforts to boost Trump’s re-election were made without any input or resources from the Trump campaign – much to their regret in the months leading up to the November 3 election. .
But two Trump campaign aides who worked closely with Kirk said the campaign had its own youth outreach efforts that went beyond voters who are still in college. These aides described the Turning Point message as too blatant to attract young voters who could align themselves more closely with conservatism but remain worried about Trump himself. Kirk was treated to a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention in August and has a close relationship with the president and some of his adult children.
“It is a mistake to think that groups operating only on college campuses are going to reach young voters outside of college,” one of the assistants said.
Another Trump ally described Turning Point Action as ill-equipped to handle youth outreach for a major presidential campaign “because it’s a relatively new organization with no deeper community ties.”
People close to Kirk have dismissed the claims, suggesting that the young activist and his group have done what they can to help the president, and have accused the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee of not having the organizational skills. and the resources needed to reach large swathes of young voters in the critical battlefield of 2020.
“Instead of trying to become the scapegoat for Turning Point Action, a completely external, separate and independent entity that still fights for electoral integrity, maybe that’s what the campaign should be doing,” said someone close to Kirk.
“He gave the president a platform when it was extremely difficult and no one could do it during the campaign,” said a second person close to Kirk.
Part of the problem for both campaigns in this cycle was the inability to reach college-age students on campuses, where they are more likely to register to vote and hear from candidates and their surrogates.
Due to campus closures linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, voter registration campaigns and initiatives such as RNC’s “Make Campus Great Again” have been delayed. Meanwhile, crowd sizes and travel restrictions in many swing states made it difficult for the Trump campaign to bring their candidate in front of millennial audiences outside of his signature rallies.
“Republicans are fighting from a deficit when it comes to young voters, so when you lose the ability to do a lot of the things that get those age groups turned out, it’s even more difficult,” he said. said a senior Trump campaign adviser.
RNC spokesman Mike Reed said the party’s students and young professional volunteers still managed to knock on more than 4.1 million doors in major battlefield states in the last few months of the cycle, in addition to making nearly 7 million calls to electoral households. However, these numbers did not apply to specific millennial awareness.
Ultimately, Trump saw a decline in his support for youth from four years ago in Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and several other states. Only Georgia and Michigan saw a slight increase in the number of Trump voters under 29 – from 33% in 2016 to 39% this cycle in Georgia, and from 34% to 35% in Michigan, data shows. exit polls. But the gains weren’t enough to put either state in the president’s column.
“We have lost ground in a year when we should have gained ground,” Trump’s ally said in a neutral tone.
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