According to Juan
Williams, the Democrats did not give young people a reason to show up and
vote in 2014:
"Congressional Democrats gave those voters little reason to go to
the polls this year. No one on Capitol Hill was standing up for their agenda.
As a result, exit polls from this year’s midterms give Democrats
only an 11- percentage-point edge over Republicans among 18-29 year olds and a
mere 3-point edge among 30-44 year olds.
Basically, the Democrats’ lead over Republicans among young voters
was cut in half in 2014.
And among 18 and 19 year olds, turnout dropped from 19 percent in
2012 to 13 percent in the midterms, a loss of about 14 million voters.
The exit polls also showed a five-percentage-point jump in young
voters who self-identify as Republicans – 31 percent this year as compared to 26
percent in 2012.
Self-identified Democrats as a share of young voters dropped from 44
percent in 2012 to 37 percent this year, while independents went up from 30
percent to 33 percent.
Republicans are pressing their appeal to young voters by bringing in
fresh faces, such as 30-year-old Elise Stefanik of New York and 39-year-old Mia
Love of Utah.
The big question for the coming Congress is whether the House
Democrats will get off the floor and fight for the interests of young
voters."
Let me
disagree with Mr Williams.
First, the
Democrats lost the youth vote when "hope and change" cease to be
about idealism. Many young people jumped on the bandwagon because they thought
that Obama was different. Well, he is not different and many young people got
turned off.
Second, it's
hard to be very excited about a policy that has you moving back with your
parents or on their health insurance policy. The American tradition is that
young people became economically independent from their parents rather than live
in their basement for lack of a good job,
I just hope
that the 2016 GOP nominee talks about growth and job creation because that's
what young people want to hear after years of "hope and change".
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