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Q&A – About President Biden’s Approval Ratings Being Worst With The Youngest Voters
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email:brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: Brian – your report on Biden’s polling numbers was as fascinating as it was eye opening. I’m surprised other conservative commentators haven’t picked up on what you’ve uncovered. Other than age, is there any additional information available that might provide more insight? I agree with your assessment that this moment in time could be a generational opportunity to reach younger voters who feel betrayed by Biden/Democrats. The more we know about these voters, the better we can approach policy conversations with them.
Bottom Line: Yes, there is, and I’ll dive into it in a moment. First to catch those who might have missed Friday’s show up on what we’re talking about here. In both Friday’s Q&A and in my Top 3 Takeaways I discussed President Biden’s approval ratings as I discovered this while researching for Friday’s Q&A: President Biden’s approval ratings are now worst youngest. Among voters 18-34 his approval rating stands at 35%. That’s four points lower than any other age range. Incidentally, that 35% figure is true of younger Floridians as well. I’m sure there’s more than just one reason for such disapproval by the youngest voters, he’s been underwater with them since early June, but one might imagine that Biden’s vaccine mandate plays a meaningful role here. Vaccination rates are lowest youngest, with only 54% of those in their 20’s vaccinated in Florida for example, and it stands to reason that those who’ve opted not to obtain a vaccine for health reasons up to now don’t take to kindly to being threatened with their jobs when they’re starting to make their way in the world and are planning for their family.
As part of that finding, I remarked that I’d literally never seen a Democrat president’s approval ratings worst among the youngest voters and suggested that there could be a Reagan-like generational opportunity for conservatives to reach young voters. Enter today’s follow-up question. So, let’s dive a bit deeper...
First, there’s been a change since my reporting on Friday. President Biden’s average approval rating among 18–34-year-old voters has fallen by another point – from 35% to 34%. That’s especially notable as Biden won these voters by 20% over Trump less than a year ago. This means that about 25% of younger voters who pulled the trigger for Biden now wish they hadn’t - that’s huge. As for the deeper demographic dive into these disenchanted voters... here’s Biden’s approval rating for those 18-34 based on additional factors:
Gender
- Female: 37%
- Male: 32%
Education
- Non-College Grad: 32%
- College Grad: 38%
- Postgraduate: 46%
Party ID
- Democrat: 63%
- Independent: 21%
- Republican: 2%
Race
- Black: 49%
- Hispanic/Latino: 41%
- White: 29%
- All others: 43%
This information shows other notable dynamics in play. Literally the only subsect of 18–34-year-old voters President Biden isn’t underwater with are self-identified Democrats. A group that only makes up about a quarter of these voters. To give you an idea of how these voters identify politically...
- Democrats: 31%
- Independent/3rd Party: 51%
- Republican: 18%
As you can tell a majority of younger voters don’t specifically identify with either major political party and what this means in context is that he’s only in positive territory with a little over a quarter of younger voters. Now the root of your question was about learning more for the purpose of outreach. Note that a majority of young voters identify as independents and that President Biden’s approval rating among them is only 21%. Clearly opportunity is there for conservatives right now. But policy matters most. It’s possible to flip voters to win an election that’s a referendum on an unpopular president, but to truly win hearts and minds that has a generational impact it must be about leading on policy and enacting that policy given an opportunity. The last time there’s evidence of a movement which had a generational impact for the Republican party among young voters was with Reagan in the 80’s. The opportunity is there for Republicans right now. The question will be whether Republicans can rise to the occasion to lead like he did on policy.