Millennial voters: 2016 and 2020
Millennial voters, those between the ages of 20 and 35 in 2016, played an increasingly vital role in the last presidential election. Compared to the 18.4 million Millennials who voted in 2008, 31.3 million Millennials cast their votes in November 2016, encompassing a 23% share of the total votes, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Gen Zers, by comparison, those born between 1997 and 2012 according to the Pew Research Center, comprised 2.7 million or 2% of the 2016 voters. Together, Gen Zers, Millennials and Gen Xers cast more than half of all votes, 69.6 million compared to Baby Boomers and older Americans, who cast 67.9 million votes, the Pew Research Center deduced. Millennial and Gen Z Americans, together making up 34 million of the reported voters, still did not surpass the 35.7 recorded Gen X voters, even though the Millennials surpass the Gen X generation in numbers, senior researcher Richard Fry explains.
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The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) analyzed that half of all voters between the ages of 18 and 29 voted in the 2016 presidential election, Matthew Green writes in a KQED article. Of this group of Millennials and Gen Zers, approximately 37% voted for the Republican candidate, approximately 55% voted for the Democratic candidate, and about 8% voted Third Party or Independent, according to CIRCLE's analysis. By comparison, 60% of Millennials voted for the Democratic candidate in the 2012 presidential election, and 3% voted Third Party or Independent. The following image created by CIRCLE categorizes the youth electorate’s support in 2016 by gender, education, and White vs. non-White ethnicity, as featured in a Brookings article by William A. Galston and Clara Hendrickson:
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Chart created by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE),
as shared in the Brookings article "How Millennials Voted This Election,"
written by William A. Galston and Clara Hendrickson (Find the original article here)
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Older citizens demonstrated higher rates of voter turnout than younger generations: 70.9% of voters ages 65 and higher, 66.6% of voters between the ages of 45 and 64, 58.7% of voters between the ages of 30 and 44, and 46.1% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. However, as the Bureau also specifies, “in 2016, young voters ages 18 to 29 were the only age group to report increased turnout compared to 2012, with a reported turnout increase of 1.1 percent. All older age groups either reported small yet statistically significant turnout decreases (45- to 64-year-olds and those age 65 and older) or turnout rates not statistically different from 2012 (30- to 44-year-olds).” Younger, non-Hispanic, white voters (ages 18-29 and 30-44) experienced increased turnout during the 2016 presidential election, whereas voting turnout rates for non-Hispanic blacks “decreased in 2016 for every age group,” the U.S. Census Bureau explains. Other non-Hispanics and Hispanics of any race and age group did not experience a statistically significant change between the 2012 and 2016 elections.
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Meanwhile, experts predict that the 2020 voter turnout will exceed numbers recorded over the past several decades, if not the past century, “potentially producing the most diverse electorate in American history,” Ronald Brownstein writes in his Atlantic article, “Brace for a Voter-Turnout Tsunami.” It’s been predicted that two-thirds of eligible voters may cast votes in the 2020 election; approximately 35 million more people voted in the 2018 midterm than the one before it, including approximately 14 million new voters who did not vote in 2016, who aligned more strongly with the Democratic Party by about 20 points, according to Brownstein. Some experts believe that most of the citizens who’ve achieved voting eligibility since the last election represent minority groups, suggesting that younger voters may contribute to increased support for the Democratic Party. This prediction comes from Trump’s higher polling popularity among voters 50 and older; Millennials (defined by the States of Change project as Americans born between 1981 and 2000) are estimated to make up 34.2% of 2020’s electorate, whereas Post-Millennials (defined by the States of Change project as Americans born after 2000) will constitute approximately 3.4% of eligible voters, Brownstein says. Democratic candidates also tend to prioritize the issues most important to Millennials and Gen Zers; for example, 19% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 polled that “the environment” is the issue they care most about, according to David Byler writing for the Washington Post.
Even if the eligible Millennial and Baby Boomer voters reach almost equal numbers in the 2020 election, however, voter turnout among Millennials is usually 20 points lower, which inhibits their power to influence change through the democratic process, Byler explains.
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