Will Antipathy or Change Determine Young Voter Turnout?

By Aisha K. Staggers


In early 2018, polls showed how passionate millennials were about November’s midterms. By summer, though, confidence in voters under 30 was starting to wane. In an article in The Washington Post, Emily Guskin writes that “low enthusiasm” coupled with a history of “anemic turnout in midterm elections” doesn’t hold the same expectations once contained at the begin of the year. Case in point, registered voters ages 18–29 only increased by 0.6% on average in battleground states after the Parkland shooting in February. It seemed millennials had become apathetic.


Young girls register to vote at the South Bay Pledge to Vote Rally on September 22, 2018 in Torrance, Calif. 


Like Gen Xers before them, millennials grew up in a global different than that of their parents. Those under 30 have grown up in a global in which socio-political realities like mass shootings in schools, once unfathomable, are right now commonplace. Millennials don’t seem to apathetic, nevertheless they so show antipathy towards authority and the values of generations past, generations that promised them a higher class of world than the one they grew up in.


On its own, antipathy can be a negative, although millennials have noticed a way to turn it to their advantage, launching the most efficient and innovative social movements this nation has seen since the 1960s. Armed with new ideas and strategies voters under 30, particularly women, are motivated in this midterm cycle.


Kelsey Baum, a senior at College of Charleston in South Carolina is unwavering in her stance that millennials can and will change those outcomes if they show up at the polls in November.


“I believe that fulfilling our civic duty of voting is more essential right now than ever before. I voted for the initial time in 2016 and it also was liberating to feel like I had a mention in the leadership I wanted to be able to see. Some people think their vote won't make a difference, nevertheless to even have our voices heard is a privilege that should not be taken for granted.”


Minda Harts, author of the upcoming book, The Memo, is ideologically different from their parents and grandparents. “I am a registered Democrat, grew up in a Republican residence. I broke tradition and voted for issues I felt were essential to me.” Harts is “excited that girls of color are voting in record numbers” and “believes in giving your time or cash to the political process. So much is at stake now that it will require all hands on deck to sustain our inalienable rights.”


A student of College of Holy Cross in Massachusetts, who asked only to be identified as Carter M., Is interning with Mass Victory, an agency that promotes Republican candidates in Massachusetts through grassroots efforts. Carter M. Believes the key issues of our time can typically interconnected like the economy and the opioid crisis. These issues are salient enough to merit his advocacy and support. “The economy has been strong within the past few months, with the U.S. Labor Department reporting a 49-year low of 3.7% [in September]. If politicians continue to push for job growth and tax cuts, our economy will remain prosperous.” As for the opioid crisis, Carter M. Believes it is also big an allocate to be solved by a solitary party. It is one supply he feels has bipartisan support in Congress and that if such efforts are continued, @we could visualize fewer opioid deaths.


MoveOn.Org is working to appeal to under 30 voters on the political left and is putting its support (and cash) beyond candidates including Chloe Maxmin, founder of First Here, Then Everywhere, as well as a Democratic candidate for Maine state Residence District 88 candidate. Identified by MoveOn as “a grassroots community organizer for the environment,” Maxmin, 26, won her primary with 80% of the vote.


Camden Hunt is a freshman at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, and is a first-time voter by absentee ballot in his residence state of Virginia. Hunt was drawn to the same offer Maxmin is running on in Maine. “I voted mainly on an environmental stance, something I find to be most crucial, especially in this era of climate change and denial.” In a candidate Hunt looked for “integrity and trustworthiness, however most importantly the ability to be open minded and progressive.” Hunt is “more liberal” in his thinking than his parents and that is perhaps why he views this midterm as a change election for his generation. For the race to 2020, Hunt says, “I am looking for environmental and civil rights advice in 2020, and I’m hoping to be able to see Kamala Harris run!”


 


De’Aria Anderson, a 24-year-old coworker at Inkhouse in New York City, is ideologically similar to her parents in her views, although does feel she’s more left-leaning than they are, particularly on human rights. She wants more candidates to know their actions affect how she votes. “I'm not necessarily looking for particular candidates. I am hoping that there will be some unity on the left to support the ideal candidate.”


Anderson also has a message for those who never visualize this as a change election in a “ugly” political climate.“There is really no better word for it. Things are so bleak in the world of politics on both sides and it's scary to be able to see some of the extremist coming out of the shadows. Yet midterm elections are usually capable of change. I have faith in young voters to prepare the correct decisions, make some noise so people wake the fuck up.”


Perhaps that is the lesson to take away from millennials about the significance of the upcoming midterms and the significance of now—to “wake the fuck” up. If the generation who never heard the words “a black man will never be president in my lifetime,” doesn’t know a time females weren’t actively seeking the presidency or hoping to be seated as VP, was place on Earth post-9/11, with mobile shooter lockdown drills because the norm, never lived in a global where the queen bee was not King Bey or that an eas social media hashtag can not only drive the direction of our political discourse, although shape public policy can wake up, surely, then, can the rest of us.


 


 


Ever wondered how several candidates under age 30 are running in your state? MTV News has got you covered. Click here for the map.