OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The closer the country comes to the November election, the more President Joe Biden continues to shed key voter demographics that helped him secure a victory over then-President Donald Trump in 2020, and that includes younger voters.
Biden has been shedding voters aged 18-29 for months, and a new survey this week found that his polling among the demographic has fallen to its lowest in recent election cycles for the Democratic candidate.
“The latest Harvard Institute of Politics (IOP) Youth Poll shows Biden at 50% to Trump’s 37% in a head-to-head matchup among 18- to 29-year-olds. In a five-way race with Robert Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein, and Cornel West factored in, Biden’s lead shrinks even more among young voters as he leads Trump by just seven percentage points with 16% of those surveyed saying they were still undecided,” The Daily Wire reported on Thursday.
“In the 2020 election, both Gen Z (ages 18-23) and Millennial (ages 24-39) voters favored Biden by 20 percentage points, according to Pew Research,” the outlet noted further.
IOP polling director John Della Volp said: “Make no mistake, this is a different youth electorate than we saw in 2020 and 2022, and young voters are motivated by different things.”
According to the Harvard poll, the decline in Biden’s support among the youth vote is primarily attributed to young men. While Biden’s lead among young women surveyed has remained relatively unchanged since 2020, his advantage has decreased by nearly 20 percentage points among young men.
IOP Director Setti D. Warren noted that “young people today have clear concerns about where our country is headed.”
“From worries about the economy, foreign policy, immigration, and climate, young people across the country are paying attention and are increasingly prepared to make their voices heard at the ballot box this November,” Warren added.
Recent polls indicate that the president is also losing support among black men and Latinos. A Wall Street Journal poll conducted in seven battleground states, released earlier this month, revealed that Biden’s support among black men has declined by 30 points since 2020.
An Axios-Ipsos poll released last week also showed a decline in Biden’s lead over Trump among Latinos, dropping from a 29-point advantage to just nine points. On key issues like the economy and crime, Trump led Biden among Latinos by 22 points and 11 points, respectively, The Daily Wire noted.
Biden has narrowed Trump’s lead in national polling in recent weeks, with the former president now leading Biden by less than half a point, according to the RealClearPolitics average as of Thursday afternoon. In a five-way competition, Trump’s lead increases slightly to 1.7 points, the outlet added.
The Washington Examiner reported earlier this month, citing surveys, that the coalition of voters Biden galvanized to defeat the former president in the 2020 presidential election appears to be crumbling.
The WSJ survey found that 30 percent of black men in seven swing states are planning to vote for the former president, which represents a massive increase from the 12 percent who supported him in 2020.
The president is still anticipated to carry the black vote, with 57 percent saying they will vote Democrat, but that is a marked collapse from 2020 and could mean the end of Biden’s tenure.
“In the same poll, 42% of black women surveyed revealed they are still uncertain or persuadable in their voting choice. In 2020, 6% of black women voted for Trump. Now, 11% said they are definitely or probably going to vote for Trump,” the report said.
“In this particular election, the persuasion isn’t just to vote or not to vote,” Adrianne Shropshire, head of BlackPAC, a Democratic super PAC, said. The persuasion is actually to get people to come to Biden and away from third parties and away from Trump.”