CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Anderson Clayton opened a pack of shiny stickers and handed them out to adolescent volunteers preparing to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
The stickers feature a tie-dye color scheme that reads: “Donald Trump is weird.”
It’s a nod to how Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, quickly became an Internet darling by not only calling Republican candidate Trump and the GOP’s fixation on book bans and abortion “weird,” but also Walz’s enthusiasm for the recent Charli XCX album “Brat”. The pop singer has endorsed the Harris campaign, in a social media post where Charli XCX said, “Kamala IS brat.”
Clayton, a Gen Zer who at 26 is the youngest party leader in the country, knows how critical the youth vote will be not only in this election but in future ones as well.
“I feel it’s my job as a state party [chair] The next election cycle is about helping to educate our adolescent people… because once they understand the education aspect, they say, ‘I know who to vote for, I know who has my best interests at heart’.” she said in an interview with States Newsroom.
But winning the youth vote also means getting those voters to actually fill out ballots and overcome their dismay about the political process and, for Democrats, issues like the Hamas-Israel war. Some forego party affiliations altogether, political experts say. North Carolina, a battleground state, offers a microcosm of how partisans and others are trying to get adolescent adults to vote.
Matthew Trott, president of the College Republicans at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he is focused on educating adolescent conservatives about candidates who were not elected in the election and making sure they make the final move.
“A lot of young people have been registered – it’s just a matter of getting them to vote,” he said.
Fight for a presidential victory
Clayton wears an iconic lime green “Brat” shirt that reads “Demo(Brat)” and has used the “weird” stickers to entice college students to listen to her ramblings about the presidential and down-ballot candidates and the vote to be heard in November. hoping to turn swing state North Carolina blue.
It’s a feat President Barack Obama’s campaign hasn’t accomplished since 2008.
In the last presidential election, Trump carried the state by a margin of 1.4 percentage points, or about 75,000 votes.
The gap in those 75,000 votes could be closed, according to Clayton, by including diverse coalitions such as adolescent and rural voters.
“I think there are so many communities that haven’t been tapped in previous election cycles, and it’s not just because they weren’t organized, it’s not because they weren’t there,” she said during one of South Asian The community organized a customer survey event at the end of September.
Their tour of the state to about 30 colleges aimed to register students to vote before Oct. 11. This was the last day they could register online or by mail to vote in the upcoming election. In-person voter registration is available during early voting from October 17th to November 2nd.
Clayton said she registered about 150 students to vote before the college tour was canceled after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina.
As people in the state worked to recover, the North Carolina Republican Party and the Republican National Committee sued the North Carolina State Board of Elections after it approved UNC-Chapel Hill’s request to restrict students from using ID cards on their cell phones as a valid form of identification to allow registering to vote.
A Wake County Superior Court judge ruled in UNC’s favor, but an appeals court overturned the decision UNC students will no longer be able to register to vote using their mobile IDs.
Big problems
Young voters are very practical, Clayton said.
She listed issues that students had told her were critical to them: access to abortion, the cost of living, a cap on rent and increasing wages.
“I think people don’t give young people enough credit for how much they care about them, and they would be interested if information was presented to them in this way,” she said.
Accordingly, Harris has increased the support of adolescent voters compared to when President Joe Biden was still in the race a national survey conducted by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School which surveyed 18- to 29-year-olds across the country in September.
When the poll was conducted in the spring, Biden had a 13-point lead over Trump among likely voters. Harris held a 31-point lead among likely voters in September.
Clayton said adolescent voters helped boost Harris after she rose to the top of the voter roll in July. Biden paused his campaign after a disastrous debate that unsettled Democrats.
“I don’t think Kamala Harris’ approval ratings would have increased as much without younger voters,” she said.
In the 2020 presidential election, Biden won the support of 59% of voters ages 18 to 29, compared to 35% for Trump, according to an analysis of the 2020 electorate by Pew Research Center.
“Very pessimistic”
However, the most recent Harvard poll found that only 56% of teens said they would vote, down from 63% of adolescent adults who said so Vote in September 2020.
Young voters, particularly those still in college, face several hurdles when it comes to voting, said Courtney Juelich, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
“Young people, regardless of generation, have lower voter turnout than older people, and that is in large part because of how complicated our electoral system is and how much emphasis is placed on the individual,” she said. “We have young people having to figure it out on their own and all these different state laws and a lot of young people going to school in another state. There are just these barriers to entry.”
Jülich added that for the first time Many adolescent voters identify as independents. “They are very pessimistic about the political process,” she said.
Democrats have also lost support due to the Israel-Hamas war, which has created a crisis and received forceful criticism from adolescent voters According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 41,000 Palestinians have died. The conflict has produced massive protests across campusrejected the war and called for a ceasefire.
“They have a very different view of the Middle East than the older voting bloc in the Democratic Party and of course the Republican Party, and that was one of Biden’s biggest concerns, not … stirring up enthusiasm when it comes to other policies, and then “He has such a touch for young voters that can absolutely influence elections,” said Jülich.
Added to this is the war in Gaza led to an uncommitted movement, when Biden was still fighting for re-election. The delegates sent to the DNC by this movement urged that a Palestinian American speak at the conventionbut were rejected by the Democrats.
Door knocking
For Eva Eapen, an 18-year-old political science sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill, not getting involved in the upcoming election wasn’t an option.
Since the summer, she has spent her weekends knocking on doors for North Carolina Asian Americans Together, providing nonpartisan information about polling places and voter registration deadlines, as well as information about candidates from the presidential ticket to local elections.
“I think there is a lot more at stake in this election. I don’t think it’s more a political election than it is about the integrity of the choice of our democratic institutions,” she said.
Eapen is a registered independent and communications intern for Josh Stein, who is running for governor of North Carolina as a Democrat.
Trott, the chairman of the College Republicans at UNC, is a 20-year-old political science and public policy student. He said he is working to reach out to the College Republicans’ customary bases, such as religious organizations and Greek life.
He said some of the issues adolescent Republicans are voting on include the economy and immigration.
“Many of us are very concerned about what we perceive as our open southern border and the threats that pose, and I know that many of us hope that with a second presidency, Trump can take a more decisive stance on this.” I hope “To be able to alleviate some of these problems,” said Trott.
Trott, who will be casting his first vote in a presidential election, said he was worried about what the economy would look like after graduation if Harris won the White House.
“Many of us are very concerned that the current economic environment after we graduate, which if Harris wins would be during her term, would be incredibly unfavorable to us and make it much more difficult for us to begin our studies.” he said.
A current one Opinion poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that the economy is a top issue for voters, with voters slightly more supportive of the way Trump would handle the economy.
The Oct. 2 Cook Political Report with Amy Walters rated Harris and Trump in a dead heat in North Carolina, at 49%.
Although North Carolina is a battleground state, Trott believes Trump will easily take the state.
“I think he managed to keep his base intact,” Trott said. “His followers didn’t leave him here.”
