The big question that comes out of the Democratic National Convention is whether they will actually start liking him. In the meantime, young voters still do not like Biden, which makes him sensitive to some of these voters who may not want to play handball in the fall.
When I saw the data back in April, Biden had only a 14-point margin over Trump with voters under the age of 35.
Clinton, by comparison, led in the 2016 polls by 19 points among registered voters under the age of 35 (and under the age of 30).
It should come as no surprise that Biden is doing better with younger voters now. He came out of a primary fight with screenwriter Bernie Sanders, who was the preferred candidate of the youngest bloc in the electorate. Now that the time is over, some of these voters may be able to put some of their animus to Biden.
Indeed, the difference between voting and net eligibility among young voters is striking. Biden runs about 30 points better against Trump in equestrian than his sole advantage alone would suggest. Again, if we add more data from July, the point is made.
Compare what happens to young voters up to 65 years and older. They give Biden a net favorability of +10 points in an average of ABC News / Washington Post, CNN, Fox News and Monmouth. The same polls put Biden ahead of Trump by 9 points with this group. That is, there is no statistical difference.
Seniors like Biden, and they vote for him.
What happens to younger voters is pretty simple: They vote for Biden because they really do not like Trump. His net favorability with those under the age of 30 averages -40 points in these same polls, if about 35 points less than Biden’s net favorability rating.
It’s hard to imagine Trump winning too much among younger voters going forward. They know who he is after about 3.5 years of his presidency.
The potential pitfall for Biden is that voters who do not like any of the candidates are much less likely to be enthusiastic about voting. In the latest CNN poll, only about 10% of people who did not have a favorable opinion of any of the candidates said they were enthusiastic about casting a vote in the fall election. Among those who had a favorable view of at least one of the candidates, about 60% were enthusiastic about voting in the fall.
Of course, enthusiasm about voting is not the same as actual voting. You can vote without being enthusiastic about the idea, although the two are linked.
We just do not know. However, this data shows the potential problem of Biden relying on young voters who do not get Trump as the mechanism to get them to vote for Biden in November.
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