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COVID-19, Race, Climate Change Dominate Youth Vote Issues
Health care and racism dominate the issues important to young people in the presidential election, according to poll trackers.
Climate change is also among the top three issues to young voters, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, found in its polling.
The Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government echoed those findings. About 45% of Americans age 30 and younger agreed they were concerned about having access to health care and mental health care. In addition, 43% of young Americans agreed that they were concerned about someone they know dying from COVID-19.
Gun violence and student loan debt are other issues that will impact young people's lives in the next five to 10 years, said Joseph Mullen, an 18-year-old DNC delegate from Florida’s 23rd congressional district.
“We want elected officials and politicians who are a little bit older than us who, you know, may not be dealing with the ramifications of what they decide in the next 10 to 15 years,” Mullen told VOA. “We want them to act as if it was their lives on the line and it’s their children’s lives on the line as well.”
Health care and racism reflect the concerns of younger voters at a time when colleges and universities have been shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and when racism and law enforcement have been in the national discussion. These have overshadowed student debt concerns that dominated youth voter polls in previous election cycles.
“We have issues like climate change, student loans, free college tuition, free two-year community college, and affordable health care being addressed, and I think those are all really important things to young voters,” said Jordan Harzynski, a freshman at George Mason University in Virginia.
“I think that leadership and rhetoric matters, so up and down the ballot I want candidates that I can trust, and I think that character is playing a bigger role in the minds of a lot of voters this year given the moment were in,” said Josh Kutner, a senior at George Washington University and chairman of GW College Republicans.
“The foremost issue to all voters right now is obviously the coronavirus, as it plays such a major role in our everyday lives now and one aspect of it is making sure we have testing capability and we are able to fully distribute an effective vaccine,” Kutner said.
Young voters are also very concerned about “police treatment to communities of color,” according to a June survey by CIRCLE.
Sanjana Taskar, a recent graduate of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and an advocate of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, said BLM “is demanding justice to be treated equal and recognizing how our foundation of government was founded on the principles of white patriarchy.”
Concern for climate change is increasing among Democrats, and young Republican voters show a higher interest in politicians attending to climate change than older Republicans, according to Pew Research Center in Washington.
“Millennial and Gen Z Republicans – those currently ages 18 to 39 – are more likely than their GOP elders to think humans have a large role in climate change, that the federal government is doing too little on climate and that the U.S. should focus on developing alternative energy sources,” according to a survey, Pew Research Center stated.
Spencer Lindquist, a junior at Pepperdine University and president of Pepperdine College Republicans, said for him, immigration and student debt were entwined.
“Immigration is an issue that affects young people in particular in a very unique way,” Lindquist said. Graduates accrue student debt “and then they find that they have to compete with people around the world for these positions,” citing Indian and Chinese H-1 work visa holders.
Youth demographics
Young Americans are more engaged in this election than in the previous election, according to CIRCLE.
According to the Tufts CIRCLE survey, “83% say they believe young people have the power to change the country, 60% feel like they’re part of a movement that will vote to express its views, and 79% of young people say the COVID-19 pandemic has helped them realize that politics impact their everyday lives.”
Out of 2,232 voters surveyed, ages 18 to 29, half said that they have tried to persuade people to vote and a quarter said they helped others register to vote, according to CIRCLE. This is significant as it is an increase from the 33% of youth who tried to persuade others to vote and 11% who registered others to vote in the 2018 election.
In 2016, the last presidential election, a little more than 40% of 18 to 29-year-olds voted, according to the United States Elections Project.
While more young Americans are engaged in this year's election, how much they believe the election will actually affect them can depend on race. A recent Harvard poll found that 64% of young white Americans were more likely to agree the election will impact their lives compared with 52% of young black Americans.
Engagement among young voters could be because of issues they believe to be impacting both America and themselves, going into the election. Young voters like the idea of voting for something and feeling mobilized versus voting against something, according to Mullen.
Mullen says that while he is a fan of candidates’ campaign efforts to reach young voters, it’s a mistake for politicians to reiterate the idea of “returning to normalcy.”
“Things have never really felt normal in this country. I was born right after 9/11, and the only things I’ve ever seen in the U.S. have been, you know, wars, recessions and pandemics,” Mullen said. “That’s just what I’ve grown up with.”
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Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
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