With just a week left to persuade Americans to take to the polls, surrogates, volunteers and supporters of both major-party presidential campaigns are in the final stretch of efforts to mobilize key constituencies – whose turnout rates could help determine who is ultimately successful after Nov. 5 – to hit the ballot box.

This year, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, or CIRCLE, estimates that more than 40 million members of Generation Z will be eligible to cast a ballot this fall, with eight million aging into the electorate for the first time this cycle. 

What You Need To Know

  • This year, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, or CIRCLE, estimates that more than 40 million members of Generation Z will be eligible to cast a ballot this fall, with eight million aging into the electorate for the first time this cycle
  • The gender divide in this year’s presidential contest is prevalent among America’s youth, with a Harvard Institute of Politics youth poll finding the gap between the percent of young women as compared to young men backing the Democratic candidate more than doubled since its survey in the Spring, when President Joe Biden was still at the top of the Democratic ticket
  • On UNC's campus,  leadership development program coordinator of Student Life and Leadership Natasha Young said her team is working to use lawn signs and social media to ensure students know how and where to cast a ballot
  • America’s youth has historically voted in smaller numbers than the nation’s older generations; But the 2020 presidential contest – which saw the highest voter turnout of the 21st century overall – saw nearly 50% of those aged 18 to 24 years old take to the polls, a rise from the 30 to 40% turnout range for decades prior, according to statistics from the Census Bureau
  • The leading student organizations on both sides of the aisles are looking to make sure they tap into their preferred candidates’ supporters on campuses and drive them to the polls 
 

For years, young voters as a whole have leaned Democratic at the ballot box. A recent Harvard Institute of Politics youth poll found Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump among those under 30 by 28 percentage points.

But the poll also highlighted how the gender divide in this year’s presidential contest is prevalent among America’s youth, with the gap between the percent of young women as compared to young men backing the Democratic candidate more than doubling since its survey in the Spring, when President Joe Biden was still at the top of the Democratic ticket. 

This dynamic, and how many young voters decide to cast a ballot, could make a difference in a potentially close election.  

Persuading young voters to take to the polls

Among America’s young voters, nowhere are the "get out the vote" efforts more prevalent than college campuses. 

Take the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which received an award for the highest voter turnout in the 2020 election among schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference, for instance.

UNC leadership development program coordinator of Student Life and Leadership Natasha Young said efforts to reach and register potential voters from both student-led groups and outside organizations backing certain candidates or issues as well as her own nonpartisan team has been on-going on campus, situated in a key sun belt battleground state, for weeks. 

Currently, Young, who runs the university’s informational website on voting, said her team is working on ramping up their use of social media to ensure students know exactly how and where they can cast their ballots on and ahead of Nov. 5. UNC, she noted, will have a voting site on campus on election day. A site for early voting – which started in the state more than a week ago – is positioned about a mile-and-a-half from the center of campus and is already up and running. 

“We’re going to be doing a lot of social media campaigning of literally like screenshots of maps, how to walk there, what are the directions,” Young said. 

Lawn signs, she said, are already up around campus letting students know early voting is underway and linking to UNC’s informational website, which includes directions on how to get to the early-voting site near the school’s grounds. Young said she is working on adding other voting sites in Orange County, where UNC is located, to the website. 

And on Election Day, Young added, her team is planning on doing an organized walk to the campus voting site. 

America’s youth has historically voted in smaller numbers than the nation’s older generations. But the 2020 presidential contest – which saw the highest voter turnout of the 21st century overall – saw nearly 50% of those aged 18 to 24 years old take to the polls, a rise from the 30 to 40% turnout range for decades prior, according to statistics from the Census Bureau. 

The National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement out of Tufts University found 66% of college students cast a ballot in 2020, a 14 percentage point increase from the study’s findings in 2016. 

On UNC’s campus, the study found, 82% of eligible students took to the polls in the last presidential election. Young pointed out that, notably, the turnout figure among undergraduate students in 2020 was higher than the one for the school’s graduate students. 

“It was so unexpected for folks and so, for me, I think that that really shows that I think some of our students are really passionate about breaking that stereotype and wanting to prove people wrong in that category,” Young said, referring to the stereotype that younger Americans are less engaged in our elections and less willing to turn out. 

Student-led organizations support Harris and Trump look to reach their peers

The leading student organizations on both sides of the aisles are looking to make sure they tap into their preferred candidates’ supporters on campuses and drive them to the polls.

Sloan Duvall, the president of UNC Young Democrats, said her organization was out in a central spot on campus – referred to as “The Pit” – every day registering voters leading up to the state’s registration deadline earlier this month. 

That job, she noted, was made easier by Harris’ quick ascension to the top of the ticket following Biden’s exit from the race in July, which she said led more than 200 new members to join her group.  

“Since Kamala Harris became our nominee, there has just been an outpouring of support and enthusiasm on our campus,” Duvall said. “I'll tell you, my life has gotten a lot easier. I used to have to run up to students with voter registration forms, convince them to register to vote and this semester, we have students running over to us asking how they can get registered.”

Duvall added that the presence of Harris’ campaign “has been felt” since it launched ground efforts in the state. She specifically pointed to the youngest member of Congress, Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., visiting campus in support of Harris at the start of the new school year as well as the vice president’s team helping more than 100 students get to Greensboro to attend one of her rallies last month. 

“I think we've seen a historic investment – like never before seen – from the Harris campaign for young people on college campuses,” she said. “They have campus organizers at every campus across our state.”

Her group, UNC’s college Democrats chapter, has also been honing in on making sure those backing the vice president know exactly where they can vote and what to bring with them. 

This year is the first presidential election in which the state’s new photo ID requirement is in effect. For UNC students, their digital school IDs will count, despite that status facing legal challenges.

Meanwhile, on the GOP side, UNC College Republican president Matthew Trott said Trump’s campaign has helped his organization put on tailgates in support of the former president at every home football game this fall. 

“We've been outside of Kenan Stadium with voter registration forms, registering people to vote who want to, and handing out, in particular, some UNC-themed Trump gear, but just also answering questions from students walking by.” 

Trott lauded the Trump team for doing more than past national GOP campaigns to connect to young people, specifically pointing to the former president going on podcasts that are popular among the demographic. The strategy is often cited in political circles as potentially contributing to Trump’s apparent popularity among young men in particular. 

“I think the most important thing is for them to actually reach out to young voters,” Trott said. “I think that historically, Republican candidates have not done as good of a job at doing that as they should have and I do think that this election cycle, they've really been more conscious of that, I suppose, and been trying to reach out to young people in a way that they haven't done for a very long time.” 

Both organizations are also particularly focused on races down the ballot in North Carolina. 

Trott said his group has honed in on its “Fall candidate series” in which his team is hosting other Republican candidates in the state to speak to students. 

“The goal of those events is, of course, to introduce students to people that they will be voting on in November, just so that they are more informed,” he said. “And we've had a great turnout for that, because we've advertised far beyond our club with the goal of bringing in people who you know are very much so undecided or non-Republican or even people who disagree.”

Duvall similarly emphasized her organization’s emphasis on statewide races in North Carolina races, noting that more than 120 students came out to hear from current Democratic State Sen. Natasha Marcus, who is running for Commissioner of Insurance, in an event it put on last month.