President Joe Biden may not be doing as well among young voters as he needs to, according to a new poll from the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School.
The poll shows Biden leading former President Donald Trump 50%-37% among registered voters under the age of 30. Among likely voters, Biden’s lead is slightly larger, 56%-37%. But among the demographic as a whole, regardless of voter status, the president’s lead is only 45%-37%.
While this double-digit lead may sound like good news for the Biden campaign, it is actually a five-alarm fire that could cost him any chance of holding the White House for another term. In 2020, the same poll placed Biden’s support at 60% among likely voters under the age of 30, while Trump scraped by with a meager 30%. But even with that massive lead among this demographic, Biden still barely succeeded in winning the number of electoral votes necessary to win the presidency.
The shift in polling is largely driven by young men abandoning the president in droves. While support among young women for Biden has proven fairly resilient compared to 2020, support for the president among young men has slipped from a 26-point advantage four years ago to a mere 6 points in 2024.
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The story of this poll is anger. Young voters have spent the past four years hearing Biden promise all sorts of outlandish things while they grapple with a poor economy driven by runaway inflation and unaffordable housing, two things that have made it nearly impossible for young people to start lives and families in a way that provides them with long-term stability. Furthermore, young people are also watching their communities deal with rising crime while struggling to accommodate the waves of illegal immigrants that have come with the president’s porous border policies.
If the results of this poll prove reflective of the November electorate, it could very well mean that Trump will return to the White House for a second term. Meanwhile, Biden and the Democratic Party will once again be left wondering how they lost touch with yet another demographic that is essential to their electoral success.