Biden gets campaign boost from coalition of youth voters

A coalition of youth voters on Monday gave Joe Biden’s re-election campaign a welcome shot in the arm amid swirling concerns over the president’s age and mental acuity.

The endorsement from 15 groups of mostly gen Z and young millennial voters was announced to mark the launch of Students for Biden-Harris, an initiative from the campaign designed to recapture the support of younger voters who helped propel Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House in 2020.

The Florida congressman Maxwell Frost, who at 27 is the youngest member of the House, will serve on its national advisory board and host its first meeting in Washington DC on Thursday. The organization will hold regular virtual and in-person meetings around the country as it seeks to build a network of chapters, many on university and college campuses.

“Young voters were crucial in delivering the election for President Biden and Vice-President Harris in 2020, and they will be just as consequential in 2024,” Frost said in a press release announcing the coalition.

It is part of a wider White House outreach to younger voters, whose support for Biden, 81, and Harris has become more lukewarm as their first term has progressed, research suggests.

A Harvard Youth poll in the fall found that only 49% of respondents aged 18 to 29 “definitely” planned to vote in the 2024 election, down from 57% at the same point four years ago; and that Biden’s approval rating among that group stood at only 35%.

On the issues that concern young voters most, including the climate emergency, gun violence, abortion, education and protecting democracy, a plurality of voters said they trusted neither Biden nor Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee.

Speculation that young voters may abandon Biden this time around has prompted action. A partially self-mocking $30m TV and digital ad blitz was launched at the weekend, featuring Biden talking up his experience as an asset.

“Look, I’m not a young guy. That’s no secret. But I understand how to get things done for the American people,” the president said in one ad, which also included an outtake of Biden laughing and calling himself “young, energetic and handsome”.

In a controversial move last month, the Biden campaign joined TikTok, the social media platform among the most used by younger generations. The controversy centered on the subject of potential security concerns over the app’s Chinese ownership.

Later this month, Harris will talk about the administration’s efforts to combat gun violence during a visit to Parkland, Florida, birthplace of the March for Our Lives youth movement following the 2018 murders of 17 students and staff in one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings.

“Gen Z has grown up hiding under desks, looking for the nearest exits in movie theaters, and worrying about being shot in our neighborhoods,” Aaliyah Eastmond, a Parkland survivor and co-founder of Team Enough, the youth-led arm of gun control advocacy group Brady, said in a press release.

“Fearing our lives could be cut short by gun violence is our daily reality, and this has long been the reality for Black and Brown youth. We need elected officials who will take on the [National Rifle Association], put our lives before gun lobby profits, and end the gun violence epidemic that is killing our youth.”

Most of the 15 groups, which also include College Democrats of America, Dream For America, the Newtown Action Alliance, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Students Demand Action and Voices of Gen-Z, offered Biden and Harris ringing endorsements.

Notably, even some that expressed reservations said they were still willing to support Biden’s re-election.

“Young Americans know that while no candidate is perfect, progress will be possible under a second term of the Biden-Harris administration,” said Sam Weinberg, executive director of Path to Progress.

“While we endorse President Biden and Vice-President Harris, and want to see them remain in the White House, we also pledge to continue demanding justice here, at home, and around the world, and to push the administration to live up to the values of our generation.”