In almost every Midwestern war-torn state in the run-up to the Trump election, the president has outperformed young voters compared to 2001, according to a Politico review of the state’s exit polls. Trump lost two states in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He also expressed grief in Arizona, another critical state, which moved.
In many of these states, the erosion was significant. In Pennsylvania, President-elect Joe Biden won young voters by a margin of 20 votes, compared to Hillary Clinton’s 9-point advantage in 2016. In Wisconsin, Biden won the state’s smallest electorate by a 16-point margin, a dramatic increase for Clinton. The razor-thin edge in 2016 – and a significant swing in state Trump – lost by just 20,000 votes. Michigan saw a four-point shift between 2016 and 2020.
“If Biden doesn’t provide electricity to young people, he has failed to reach out to many young people,” said one of Trump’s aides who are heavily involved in reaching out to young people.
For Trump’s critics, Biden handled who his opponents were because of the young electorate: a divisive politician with a culture war playbook who failed to excite the audience outside his base. But among supporters and allies of the presidential campaign, the consensus is much less clear. Interviews with more than a dozen people involved in Trump’s 2020 operation came up against rifts, akimoni and a system in which no one is to blame but everyone was a scapegoat – from the President himself, to the turning point in the USA, to Kirk Planning group.
The result is a GOP with a lack of understanding of what went wrong with Millennium and General Z voters. Left – especially in a cycle where Trump has benefited with other demographics – and no clear strategy for preventing another increase in youth support for Democrats in 2022 by midterm elections. The Republican Party desperately needs a strategy to reverse the trend by struggling for decades to engage with young voters.
“The Republican Party has no future if it does not improve its performance among small voters,” said G.O.P., a former top aide to House Speaker John Boehner. Said strategist and Michael Steele.
“I’m not a fan of top-down ops topsy processes,” Steele added, “but I hope the end of the Trump presidency is a natural trend point and it’s time to reboot to some extent.”
Some Republican activists involved in the 2020 cycle have said that the way Democrats are voting heavily when Trump is no longer in office is the way the current G.O.P. Will see what improves.
He said the president’s inflammatory approach to issues such as gender relations, which has become a major cultural flashpoint this summer, could potentially cost the party the support of young people who were on the fence to support Trump and less ideologically rigid than their old counterparts Is. Such subjects.
For example, a post-election study by Tufts University’s Tish College of Civic Life found that 60 percent of Trump voters between the ages of 18 and 29 believe racism is “somewhat or a very serious issue,” compared to 52 percent of Trumps. Voters over 45 years of age. Similar differences emerged when young Trump voters were asked about the importance of climate change (52 percent said they were “concerned” about 40 percent of older Trump voters) and their self-disclosed identities (61 percent against 71 percent of older Trump voters). Rs are known as servicut (voters).
Activists from the same party also blamed Trump for failing to tweak his message in some cases when he appeared before a small audience during the general election.
At a June campaign event in Phoenix, Arizona, where the president spoke to several “students for Trump” activists, he talked about 401 (k) retirement funding, school choice and stock market benefits – issues that resonate more with older investors. Provides, plans for retirement and parenting.
“Your 101 (k), I don’t think you want to play with anyone else because you’re just on a record level, and if you put the wrong guy inside, they’ll perish,” Trump said. A group that never dealt with 401 (k).
Others blamed the Trump campaign, accusing the president’s top aides of “outsourcing” their youth outreach program Turning Point Action, a rogue campus group turning point USA’s political action program.
Led by its 26-year-old founder, Charlie Kirk, the group knocked on numerous doors of the cycle and oversaw voting efforts, in addition to working with top White House colleagues such as senior adviser Jared Kushner. Which put the audience and their surrogates in front of a young audience. People associated with Kirk’s operation claimed that his “Herculean” efforts to boost Trump’s election were made without the input or resources of the Trump campaign – in the months leading up to the November 3 election.
But two of Trump’s campaign aides who worked closely with Kirk said the campaign is an effort to reach out to its own youth who are even ahead of voters who are still in the lead. These aides described the turning point message as too psychophysical to bring in young voters, who align themselves more closely with Rs. Kirk received a primetime speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in August Gust and has a close relationship with the president and some of his adult children.
“It’s a mistake to think that groups operating on college campuses alone are going to reach out to young voters outside of college,” an aide said.
Another Trump called the turning point action poorly equipped to control the reach of young people for the Allied presidency campaign, “because it is a relatively new organization without community relations.”
People close to Kirk have denied the allegations, suggesting that the young activist and his group did everything possible to help the president, and accused the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee of lacking organizational skills and resources to reach a wider level of young voters. Is required. Serious 2020 Battlefield.
“Instead of trying to boycott the turning point action, a completely outside, separate and independent entity that is still fighting for the integrity of the election should probably do the same campaign,” said a person close to Kirk.
Another person close to Kirk said that when he gave the president a platform when it was too hard and no one could complete it on the campaign.
Part of the theme of both of these campaigns was the inability to reach age-led students on campus, where they mostly register to vote and listen to candidates and their surrogates.
With the closure of the Kovid-19 epidemic-related campus, initiatives such as voter registration drives and RNC’s “Make Campus Great Again” stalled. Meanwhile, the size of crowds and travel restrictions in many swing states made it difficult for Trump to get his candidacy in front of a thousand-year-old audience outside his signature rallies for the campaign.
“Republicans are fighting a deficit when it comes to young voters, so when you lose the ability to do a lot of things to vote with those age groups, it’s even more challenging,” said a senior Trump campaign adviser. Said the senior adviser.
RNC spokesman Mike Reed said the party’s students and young professional volunteers have been able to knock on more than 1.1 million doors in major war-torn states in the last few months of the 2020 cycle, in addition to making nearly a million million voter families. However, these figures do not apply to millennial-specific approaches.
Finally, Trump saw a decline in youth support four years ago in Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and many other states. According to exit poll figures, only Georgia and Michigan saw a slight increase in Trump voters under the age of 29 – from 33 percent in 2016 to 39 percent in Georgia, and 34 percent to 35 percent in Michigan. But the benefits of placing any state in the President’s column were not enough.
“We lost land in a year where we should have gotten the land,” the Trump ally said.
