Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON DC Some 52.2 of respondents aged 18 to 34 told Reuters/Ipsos they were certain or almost certain to vote compared with 56.1 who reported that level of certainty at the same point in 2012.
That sentiment is broadly reflected in poll data that show that young Americans are less enthusiastic about their choices in November than they were four years ago when Democratic President Barack Obama faced a re-election challenge from Republican Mitt Romney.
The national tracking poll was conducted online in English in all 50 states. It included 3088 people between 18-34 years old who took the survey from Oct. 1 to Oct. 17 and 2141 18-34 year olds who took the poll on the same days in 2012. It has a credibility interval a measure of accuracy of 2 percentage points for both groups.
The exceptionally negative tone of this years race for the White House is souring young Americans turning some away from the democratic process just as the millennial generation has become as large a potential bloc of voters as the baby boomers.
Its because of the selection of the candidates. I find them to be not just sub-par but unusually sub-par said Brandon Epstein who turned 18 on Monday. Somethings gone terribly wrong said the student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge Massachusetts who plans to sit out the vote on Election Day Nov. 8.
Reuters/Ipsos polling shows that Americans aged 18 to 34 are slightly less likely to vote for president this year than their comparably aged peers were in 2012.
Some political scientists worry that this election could scar a generation of voters making them less likely to cast ballots in the future.
Young Americans on the left and right have found reasons to be dissatisfied with their choices this year. Senator Bernie Sanders had an enthusiastic following of younger people before he lost the Democratic primary race to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On the Republican side some are unwilling to vote for Donald Trump citing the New York businessmans sometimes insulting rhetoric on women
minorities and immigrants.
DEEP CYNICISM
For at least the past half century young Americans have voted at lower rates than their elders. But this years decline in enthusiasm is of particular concern because it comes as the millennial generation - people born from 1981 through 1997 - has become as large a bloc of eligible voters as the baby boomers - born between 1946 and 1964. Each groups number of eligible voters is approaching 70 million people according to the Pew Research Center.
This generation has never trusted the government Wall Street or the media less John Della Volpe director of polling at Harvard Universitys Institute of Politics said of the millennials. Thats likely to result in turnout of less than 50 and of those who do turn out there is still a deep cynicism regarding the impact of their vote whether or not it will make a difference.The projected low turnout is a particular concern given recent research showing how important habit is in encouraging voter participation. Put simply a person who votes in one election is about 10 percent more likely to vote in the next than an eligible voter who opted to stay
home said Alexander Coppock an assistant professor of political science at Yale University.
If you extend that logic if you have an election that fails to turn people on to voting youd expect that you wouldnt get that cumulative effect said Coppock whose article Is Voting Habit Forming? was published in this months issue of the American Journal for Political Science.
