CNN Poll: Harris leads Trump among young voters but falls short of Biden’s 2020 winning margin

By Ariel Edwards-Levy, CNN

(CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris holds a 12-point lead over former President Donald Trump among voters younger than 35 – a group that’s largely dissatisfied with the influence it holds in American politics, but remains optimistic about the country’s future, according to new CNN polling conducted by SSRS.

Harris leads Trump 52% to 40% among these likely voters younger than 35. That still suggests a tighter race among this group than in 2020, when President Joe Biden ended up with a 21-point margin among the same age group, according to exit polls. But it marks a return to more typical voting patterns after polls earlier in the year showed Biden struggling to rally youth support for a second term.

The gender gap seen across voters of all ages is present among this group as well. Where female likely voters younger than 35 prefer Harris over Trump, 53% to 39%, male likely voters are closely divided. And among registered voters, young women are 15 points likelier than men to express a positive view of Harris.

Polling on young voters’ presidential preference has ranged significantly over the past year. While most recent polling suggests a return-to-form for young voters favoring the Democratic nominee following Harris’ rise to the top of the ticket, these surveys offer varying pictures of the scale of Harris’ advantage with this group. Not every pollster reports the same range of ages in assessing younger voters’ preferences, but even in the last few days, national polling on the state of the race has found a margin among younger voters as tight as Harris +3 (in the Quinnipiac University poll of likely voters age 18 to 34) and as broad as Harris +32 (in the Harvard Institute of Politics poll of likely voters age 18 to 29).

The latest CNN poll surveyed a larger sample of younger voters than is typical in most national polls in order to have greater confidence in the results among this critical voting bloc. It suggests a slightly wider margin for Harris among likely voters under 30 (55% Harris to 38% Trump with that group) than among those age 18 to 34.

In a race largely ossified by partisanship, the CNN poll shows young voters may be among the most potentially movable part of the electorate: 19% of likely voters younger than 35 say they’re less than fully set on a choice this election, compared with 12% among those 35 and older. There’s also more uncertainty about which younger voters will cast a ballot at all. Among young registered voters, only about half say that they’re extremely motivated to vote or that they feel it’s extremely important that they themselves vote, both numbers that are significantly lower than among older groups.

Young Trump supporters are 10 points less likely than young Harris supporters to describe themselves as extremely motivated and 11 points less likely to place extreme importance on their own vote, a finding that mirrors other recent polling on this age group. There’s also a gender divide, with young female registered voters 13 points likelier than their male counterparts to say they feel their own vote is extremely important.

Young voters came of age as part of a unique political era. Two-thirds of those younger than 35 said they first started paying attention to politics during the Obama presidency or later, with about one-sixth saying their memories only date back to Trump’s presidency.

Young voters’ memory of the Trump presidency are largely sour – 57% call his presidency a failure, higher than any other age group – but their feelings toward Biden’s administration are even more negative, with 67% calling it a failure. Still, about 3 in 10 young voters who see the Biden presidency as a failure say they plan to vote for Harris, a larger share than she captures among disaffected voters of all ages. While young White voters are 15 points likelier than older White voters to call Trump’s presidency a failure, that dynamic is reversed among young voters of color, who are, if anything, slightly more likely than their older counterparts to say Trump’s time in office was generally a success.

Trump’s favorable rating among young registered voters stands at just 34%, while their views of Harris are, on balance, roughly neutral – 47% rate her favorably, and 45% unfavorably. About half of young registered voters, 51%, say Trump has worsened their view of the GOP more broadly, roughly doubling the 27% who say he improved their views of the party. Young Republican voters are more likely than older ones to say that Trump improved their perception of the GOP: 66% of Republican registered voters younger than 35 say so compared with about half among those age 35 or older (51%).

Harris inspires much less negativity for the Democrats but no broader enthusiasm: 35% say she has had a negative effect on their view of the Democratic Party, with 27% saying she’s improved it. Overall, half of registered voters say Trump worsened their view of the Republicans, and 40% that Harris worsened their view of the Democrats.

About 44% of young registered voters describe themselves as belonging to or leaning toward the Democratic Party, with 33% saying they’re Republican or Republican-leaning, and 23% that they don’t lean toward either party. While voters’ party affiliations largely remain stable over time, there is some room for movement. Among registered voters overall, 38% who are not currently aligned with the Democratic Party say they’ve at one time considered themselves to be Democrats, with 28% who are not currently GOP-aligned saying they’ve previously thought of themselves as Republicans. Even among younger voters, roughly one-third say they once considered themselves part of a party they’re no longer aligned with.

Likely voters of all ages call the economy their top issue. That’s particularly true among Trump’s supporters: roughly 6 in 10 Trump supporters call the economy their top issue, a number that’s nearly identical among his younger and older backers. But there’s more of an age divide among Harris’ base. In a contrast to older Harris supporters, who call protecting democracy more important than any other issue in this election, younger Harris voters are more focused on abortion and reproductive rights – 30% call that their top issue, with smaller shares choosing the economy (21%) or protecting democracy (20%) as their biggest priority.

While likely voters on the whole give Trump a significant edge over Harris on trust to handle the economy, young likely voters are closely split: 43% prefer Trump on the issue, while 42% prefer Harris. Young voters also give Harris a wide advantage over Trump on trust to address abortion and reproductive rights (57% to 28%), protecting democracy (50% to 33%) and addressing the concerns of the next generation of Americans (49% to 35%).

About two-thirds of registered voters younger than 35 say they’re dissatisfied with the influence people like them have on the political process, with dissatisfaction particularly high among young White voters. And the vast majority of young voters, 88%, say that America’s political system needs, at the least, major reforms, though only about one-third say it requires a complete overhaul. Most still express optimism for the future of the US: 58% say that America’s best days are ahead, compared with 42% who say the country’s best days are in the past.

Many of those numbers are similar to the voting public as a whole, suggesting that young voters aren’t uniquely disenchanted about the state of the country. Sixty-two percent of registered voters say they’re dissatisfied with the influence people like them have on the political process, 41% say the country’s best days are now behind it, and 36% say that America’s political system needs a complete overhaul – a number that’s up 20 points from 2003.

But pessimism about America and a desire for radical change in its governance are more sharply polarized among older voters. Young Harris voters are 13 points more likely than young Trump voters to say that the country’s best days lie ahead and 6 points less likely to say the country’s political system needs a complete overhaul. Among older Harris and Trump voters, those partisan gaps are about twice that size or more.

Most registered voters younger than 35 say the federal government doesn’t do enough to help people like them (64%) or younger Americans in general (72%) – in both cases, higher than the shares of voters overall who say the same.And 81% of younger voters say the government doesn’t do enough for working-class Americans, with 72% of under-35 registered voters – and 64% of voters overall – saying the government is doing too much to help the wealthy.

The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS online and by telephone September 19-22, 2024, among 2,074 registered voters nationwide drawn from a probability-based panel. Likely voters include all registered voters in the poll weighted for their predicted likelihood of voting in this year’s election. The survey included an oversample to reach a total of 624 registered voters under the age of 35; this group has been weighted to its proper size within the population for all survey results. Results for the full sample of registered voters have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.0 percentage points; it is the same among likely voters and larger for subgroups. Results among registered voters younger than 35 have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points; among likely voters younger than 35, it is plus or minus 5.4 percentage points.

CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta and Edward Wu contributed to this report.

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