Young voters are angry at President Biden and threatening to stay home in November, setting off alarm bells that have fueled a pandering spree as the nation’s oldest commander-in-chief desperately tries to capture the youth vote.
Once the calendar flipped to 2024, Mr. Biden, 81, has launched several policy initiatives aimed at alleviating young voters’ disappointment in him.
In the past two weeks, he imposed a moratorium on liquified natural gas exports to appeal to their climate concerns, canceled $5 billion in student debt and participated in a blitz of events touting abortion rights.
Mr. Biden is so desperate to appeal to young voters that his campaign is reportedly pleading for an endorsement from global superstar Taylor Swift. The campaign has even half-jokingly proposed sending Mr. Biden to a stop on Ms. Swift’s Eras Tour.
“Young voters are leaving the Democrat party in droves,” said Jimmy Keady, a Republican Party strategist. “That doesn’t mean they will be voting for Republicans, but it does mean that Joe Biden and the Democrats are going to have a hard time getting them to come back in. If Biden wants to recover, he is going to have to do more than earn the support of Taylor Swift.”
The Biden campaign didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. The White House last fall launched a strategy of Vice President Kamala Harris visiting college campuses to appeal to young voters on issues including abortion rights, gun safety, climate change, voting rights, gay rights and equality, and book bans.
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“This generation is critical to the urgent issues that are at stake right now for our future,” Ms. Harris has said. “It is young leaders throughout America who know what the solutions look like and are organizing in their communities to make them a reality. My message to students is clear: We are counting on you, we need you, you are everything.”
The current pandering strategy isn’t new for Mr. Biden. Whenever polls reveal a drop in support among part of his Democratic base, he leaps into action trying to win it back.
The president has unleashed his toughest talk about securing the southern border as Hispanic voters abandon him, increased appearances at events with Black voters as their support declines, and tried to regain the far left with his climate proposals, while other liberals sour on his support for Israel.
But young voters are turning on Mr. Biden more than other traditionally reliable Democratic blocs. In 2020, he carried the youth vote by 25 points over former President Donald Trump. But a spate of polls released last month warned that in 2024 the presumptive Republican presidential nominee could do better with young voters.
A USA Today/Suffolk University poll found among voters ages 35 and younger, Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden 37% to 33%. Results from a New York Times/Siena College poll revealed that Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden 49% to 43% among voters ages 18 to 29.
Last week, a Quinnipiac poll found that Mr. Biden had a 5-point lead over Mr. Trump with Pennsylvania voters under 35. In 2020, Mr. Biden won that same group by 16 percentage points.
Mr. Biden’s approval rating among voters ages 18-29 stands at 35%, according to a December poll of young voters by Harvard University.
The youth departures have only ramped up Democratic anxiety ahead of a likely rematch with Mr. Trump. A Republican hasn’t won the majority of young voters since President Reagan in 1984.
The likelier scenario is that young voters will stay home in November. The Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School found last month that young people are less inclined to vote this year than in 2020, dropping from 57% to 49%.
Young voters in polls cite several areas in which they say Mr. Biden has disappointed them. They accuse him of dragging his feet on climate change, failing to fulfill his promises to cancel student loans or codify Roe v. Wade, and say he has mishandled the economy.
“Young voters are graduating college with debt that Joe Biden promised to wipe away,” Mr. Keady said. “They are joining a workforce and economy where it is hard to find a good-paying job that helps them make ends meet. Joe Biden’s youth program isn’t unique to young voters; they’re common for hard-working Americans from coast to coast.”
Mr. Biden’s support for Israel may be the biggest reason for his free-fall among young voters. It remains one of the areas where he refuses to cave to the youth vote’s demands.
Young voters represent a growing Democratic Party faction that believes Israel is responsible for its war with Hamas and has colonized “indigenous” Palestinians. They are angry that Mr. Biden has sent weapons to Israel and what they say is insufficient humanitarian aid to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. They also are frustrated that the president hasn’t called for a cease-fire.
In November, a coalition of young voter groups, including March for Our Lives, United We Dream, and Gen-Z for Change, sent a letter to Mr. Biden saying his avoiding a cease-fire call was a “moral and political disaster.”
So Mr. Biden has kept his focus on climate and student debt to appease young voters. A Tufts University poll found that 72% of voters age 29 and younger ranked climate change as the top issue motivating them to vote.
The same poll, however, found that many of the climate-concerned voters still need to be convinced they should support the president. Overall, only 1 in 5 young people in the survey said they had heard about climate change from either the Trump or Biden campaigns.
In response, Mr. Biden has paused issuing new licenses for liquified natural gas exports. The pause, which will last through the Nov. 5 election, won high praise from climate activists, who had accused him of breaking his promises last year when he approved ConocoPhillips’ oil and gas drilling project in Alaska.
He also canceled $5 billion in student debt for 74,000 borrowers, including those who work in the private sector. It was the latest in a series of actions by the president to wipe out student debt. Mr. Biden used one of the smaller debt relief programs the White House launched after the Supreme Court struck down its original, much larger plan.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.