President Biden is trying to save his reelection campaign by embracing policies that matter most to young voters but can’t stop the defections which now account for the largest drop in his support among any demographic.

In April, Mr. Biden moved to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, the first step toward federal legalization. He also stepped up his efforts to cancel student loans, shifted U.S. policy toward Israel, ordered his Justice Department to sue the parent company of Ticketmaster to lower concert ticket prices and made restoring abortion access a central argument for his reelection.

These election-year moves to improve Mr. Biden’s appeal have failed to bring young voters, who traditionally skew liberal, back into the fold. In 2020, Gen Z and millennials lifted Mr. Biden over President Trump with an overwhelming 60% of the vote.

This year things are looking different. Some polls show Mr. Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, leading the president among voters under 30 while others show Mr. Biden only slightly ahead.

The erosion of Mr. Biden’s support from voters under 30 can be traced back to a trifecta of issues, say pollsters, strategists and young voters themselves: He’s too old and has lost a step, hasn’t fixed high interest rates and high rent, and he failed to deliver on his promises.

Brian Grahe, a 22-year-old college student from Pittsburgh said he planned on living at home to save money while going to school, but sky-high inflation forced him to also get a part-time job while in school. He cast his vote for Mr. Biden in 2020 but is unsure he’ll show up at the polls in November.

“It’s been nothing but unfulfilled promises,” he told The Washington Times. “If Biden can start addressing the problems young people are concerned about — abortion, student debt and the economy — I think more people will turn out for him.”

A CNN poll released in May revealed that Mr. Biden is 11 points behind Mr. Trump among voters 18-34 in a head-to-head matchup. Among voters 18-29, Mr. Biden only leads by 1 point (47% to 46%) over Mr. Trump, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll. A Marist College poll had Mr. Trump with a 2-point lead among millennial and Gen-Z voters, which includes voters between ages 18 and 27.

The Harvard Youth Poll released last month had better news for the president, giving him an 8-point lead over Mr. Trump.

Complicating matters for Mr. Biden is the blurry picture of young voters, who are not as liberal as previous generations and reject the monolith of party ideology.

A Gallup poll released this week found that 47% of Gen Z voters identify as Democrats, compared to 39% identifying as Republicans — an 8-point advantage. That’s the narrowest Democratic lead since 2005. In 2019, Democrats had a 23-point with this age group.

“All Americans are results-oriented and this generation is not any different. They want results and are frustrated because the president has talked a lot but only done some of those things,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon.

He also blamed Republicans in Congress for the president’s struggles to follow through on some of his promises.

Ignite International, an organization that researches youth political participation, surveyed 1,300 members of Gen Z across the country and found party affiliation tracked similarly to older voters. Gen Z’s male voters and White voters split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. The Black voters and female voters in Gen Z overwhelmingly identified as Democrats.

The survey found that age was a concern among Gen Z, with 90% saying they want younger candidates. Mr. Trump, 77, is only four years younger than Mr. Biden.

“They are very disillusioned with the candidates, both of them,” said Sofia Huizar, chief marketing officer at Ignite. “There really wasn’t a partisan difference in terms of feeling, but they want someone who can relate to them in terms of their personal experience. They want someone in their mid-30s or 40s who has experience but is close to them as a generation.”

More than 80% of voters under 30 said Mr. Biden is too old to be president compared to 61% who said the same thing about Mr. Trump, according to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll.

Despite Mr. Biden’s grab bag of policies aimed at younger voters, none appear to have motivated their support. His Achilles heel with Gen Z and millennials is the same as with their parents and grandparents: the economy.

Inflation has cooled considerably since peaking at 9% in June 2022, but prices remain higher than before the 2020 election. While wages have grown under Mr. Biden’s watch, young adults have the lowest earnings-to-assets ratio of any age group, which is not unusual, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, much of their earnings are eaten up by high interest rates and rental costs. Apartment rents jumped about 18% between October 2020 and January 2024, according to Redfin. Homeownership is also down as sky-high mortgage rates impact younger voters compared to older voters who are more likely to already own a home.

“Questions about the economy and the cost of living are really at the top of mind for young voters,” Ms. Huiza said. “They want to know how they are going to afford a home, why the cost of living is so high and what the candidates are going to do about student debt and inflation.”

Student debt and high rental prices weigh on Leslie Keough, a 19-year-old retail worker from Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania. She’s delayed attending college for fear of taking on too much debt.

“It’s nearly impossible for my generation to achieve financial stability,” she told The Times. “Biden needs our vote, but what is he doing to lower costs?’

Mr. Biden insists he fixed the economy and that its growth outpaces other countries even as prices remain high.

Beyond the economy, Mr. Biden has struggled to deliver on issues that young voters care about most.

He promised widespread student loan forgiveness and many young voters had hoped their loans would be canceled, but the Supreme Court declared his plan unconstitutional.

Since then, Mr. Biden approved nearly $167 billion in forgiveness through more narrow methods such as targeting specific groups, including those with disabilities, some who attended for-profit colleges and public servants who have been paying their loans for years.

Abortion, another top issue among young voters, has also vexed the president. Mr. Biden and his team were caught off-guard by the timing of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, even though it had been leaked months earlier.

Since then, he has pledged to safeguard abortion, but he has hit roadblocks. He argues that he needs Democratic majorities in the House and Senate to enshrine abortion rights in federal law.

Mr. Biden in 2020 pledged to decriminalize marijuana on the federal level and issue mass pardons for people in federal prisons on nonviolent marijuana offenses. Though he has issued some pardons, he hasn’t moved on decriminalizing marijuana. After three years in office, he took a step forward by moving to reclassify it as a less dangerous drug.

Under pressure from Democrats and young voters, Mr. Biden shifted U.S. policy in Israel to be more sympathetic toward the humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the relentless Israeli war with Hamas terrorists. Mr. Biden has repeatedly chided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and withheld bombs so they couldn’t be used during Israel’s invasion of Rafah. He also reversed his steadfast refusal to call for a cease-fire.

Wassim Kanaan, chairman of the New Jersey chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, told The Times that the moves were “too little, too late.”

“Joe Biden sees the writing on the wall. He’s lost the young progressives,” he said. “His legacy is that of supporting genocide. He can’t do anything to escape that. He dug his hole.”

• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.