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According to a new poll, young voters could vote at a record high in mid-term elections next month.
The survey, released Monday by the Institute of Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, found that 40% of 18- to 29-year-olds say they will "vote" in the mid-term elections on November 6th.
Youth voter turnout has always been low in mid-term elections, which tend to attract fewer voters than the presidential election years. The highest rate of youth voter turnout in the last mid-term election was 21% in 1986 and 1994, according to the Harvard report, which quotes data from the US Census.
In the mid-term elections of 2014, 19.9% of adults under 30 voted – "the lowest youth participation rate recorded [Current Population Supplement] over the past 40 years, "according to the Information and Research Center on Civic Learning and Engagement. In the 2016 presidential election, 46.1% of adults under 30 years of age voted, an increase over 2012, but the lowest turnout of all age groups, according to US Census data. That year, the Harvard Institute of Politics poll predicted that 49% of 18- to 29-year-olds would vote.
In this year's survey, a higher percentage of young Democrats (54%) than young Republicans (43%) said they were likely to vote, but Republican enthusiasm has risen since the spring, revealed survey. Overall, 66% of those polled supported Democrats' resumption of Congressional control, compared with 32% of Republican control.
Republicans and Democrats emphasized the importance of these mid-term elections. The former President Barack Obama said that it would be "deeply dangerous not to vote," and President Donald Trump – who still suffers from the weak approval of young Americans – the most important mid-term election which everyone can remember. "
Other factors have provided evidence of a possible increase in turnout this year. A record 800,000 people registered to vote on National Voter Registration Day in September. And there has been a wave of youth activism, particularly around the issue of gun control following the shooting in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
"More than ever, young voters have shown that they are ready to stand up and be heard," said the director of the Politics Institute, Mark Gearan, in a statement. "Our candidates and our political parties would have every interest in paying close attention to what is now the largest group of potential voters in America."
The Harvard survey of 2,003 adults aged 18 to 29 was conducted online from October 3 to 17, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.18 percentage points.
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