People like to caricature millennials as entitled, uninformed, lazy, and a host of other characteristics that are largely off the mark. One thing we all can agree on, however, is the decisive role millennials played in the 2016 election–by either voting or not voting–and the role young people will play in the future of U.S. civic life. Millennials are the most diverse chunk of the electorate in the history of the country, making for an elusive group, one that politicians struggle to understand and connect with. So how did millennials–in all of our diverse glory–vote last Tuesday? And how will our preferences and attitudes shape elections to come?

How Millennials Voted

Members from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tuft’s Tisch College hosted an event at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C. on Thursday, where they presented data they averaged from multiple sources and polls in regard to the youth vote in 2016. One thing CIRCLE found is that young people voted at about the same rate in 2016 as they did in 2012, with about half of millennials, or 24 million, casting ballots. Of those who voted, 57 percent did so for Hillary Clinton, and 34 percent for President-elect Donald Trump. But these figures tell only a fraction of the entire story.

“There are many stories of young people, and they have different realities, different priorities, and how they voted really reflected that divide they have,” said Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, the director of CIRCLE who presented the data at Brookings. Unsurprisingly, young people’s ethnicity, religion, race, and gender largely colors their feelings and perspectives, and thus shape how they vote.

For instance, in CIRCLE’s pre-election poll, 67 percent of African-Americans youth, and 36 percent of young Latinos said they would be afraid of a Trump presidency, much higher than young whites who felt the same. This is unsurprising, given the fact that the vast majority of Trump’s voters were white, among young, middle-aged, and older voters alike. But there is more to that story as well. Fifty percent of young white women voted for Clinton, while 42 percent voted for Trump. Comparatively, 54 percent of young white men voted for Trump, while 35 percent voted for Clinton.

Shifting Identities

And although millennials turned out in similar numbers as they did in 2012, enthusiasm toward the two major parties is somewhat down. At the Brookings event, Kawashima-Ginsberg and her CIRCLE colleague Abby Kiesa, discussed how political identities and affiliations are different for millennials than they were for previous generations. For example, young people are more likely to embrace the ideological label of “liberal,” yet are also less likely to identify as Democrats.

Young people might increasingly embrace a liberal ideology, Kiesa said, “but don’t necessarily see the Democratic party as an institution that can represent and advance those ideas.” She thinks at least some of this is “related to some young people’s curiosity of third parties.” The Brookings panel also included two important voices, Carmen Berkley and Jane Coaston, both millennials and women of color. They discussed how to keep millennials of all stripes engaged in the political process, and not just every four years, as well as the crosscurrents that could explain how young people voted in 2016.

What Kind of Change?

Like then-Senator Barack Obama in 2008, while with a decidedly different tone, “change” was a galvanizing element of 2016, especially for Trump voters. Coaston, a political reporter for MTV News, questions what change means exactly. Trump voters, she said, “were looking for change, but they weren’t looking for Republican style change, they were looking for Trump style change.”

In other words, it wasn’t change via Republican orthodoxy–small government, less regulation, and free trade–but via Trump’s radical, if not entirely ideological, platform. In the final weeks of the campaign, Coaston said, Trump started talking about infrastructure investment and making schools affordable. “That’s not standard GOP language,” she said.

Engagement

Berkley, the civil, human, and women’s rights director at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, is focused on a different sort of change. “If you’re a group of white people that work in an institution, and you’re talking about race, racism, gender, and LGBTQ issues, and there are none of us sitting at the table then you are already doing it wrong,” she said.

Berkley thinks the key to ensuring progressive goals expand and strengthen is that communities of color need to be represented in leadership positions. Another key factor of millennial engagement, she said, is though the media channels they use most.

Kawashima-Ginsberg thinks listening to young people’s want for change, not ignoring it and silencing it, is the key to an engaged civic society in the future. “We need to make sure we take that voice of dissent to the current system and make sure they can engage in a professional and democratic manner moving forward,” she said. “Mending our civic fabric is not a luxury, it’s a necessity and I hope we’re all ready to contribute.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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With the Iowa caucuses rapidly approaching and the New Hampshire primary not too far behind, recent poll results on both sides of the aisle have become all the rage. The slow but steady rise of support for Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has certainly been a phenomenon to watch as he works on closing the gap between the support for his campaign and the support for Hilary Clinton’s–the other likely option for Democratic presidential nominee. But why has Senator Sanders been rising in the polls? And who has been boosting these numbers? Recent polling shows that it may actually be millennial women who are blowing up Bernie’s ratings, rather than the “Berniebros” that many have assumed were his main supporters.

Hillary is still polling better nationally, but recent numbers suggest that Bernie may not be too far behind, and the support he has been garnering among young voters may be just what he needs to have a shot at the nomination. In a recent USA Today/Rock the Vote Millennial Poll, people between the ages of 18 and 25 were found to show strong support for Bernie Sanders. Men under 35 are supporting Sanders over Clinton by four percentage points, but the real kicker happens to be (you guessed it) millennial women. They favor Sanders by just under 20 points, possibly disappointing their mothers who belong to the baby boomer generation currently mostly in favor of Clinton.

So why are these millennial women so into Sanders? It all comes down to the issues that they care about. The USA Today poll also reported that some of the issues younger voters cared most about were related to gun control, welcoming refugees, fixing police corruption, and getting rid of extreme poverty. These hot button topics that are worrying liberal-minded millennials are the same issues Sanders’ campaign is focusing on: racial justice, living wages, humane immigration politics, and so much more. In addition, some of the issues Sanders is most passionate about are problems directly influencing young women today, such as expanding Planned Parenthood and making college tuition lower or–dare I say it–even free. This young generation of voters is thrilled with his willingness to engage in some of the most prevalent issues in our country and the solutions he proposes to fix them. Fewer young women are buying into the idea that this opportunity for a woman president has to be seized in order to promote the feminist agenda.

Even with the upward trend in Bernie buzz, there’s still a challenging road ahead for his campaign if he wants to win the Democratic nomination. The biggest roadblock is predicted to be a lack of voter turnout amidst Sanders’ most avid supporters, as millennial voter turn out has been particularly weak in the past few years, with an all-time low in the 2014 midterm elections. But, if these voters do show up, Clinton could be in for yet another presidential nomination upset, and everybody running her campaign seemingly knows it. Clinton’s campaign has gone from practically ignoring Sanders’ presence to directly engaging with him in debates and acknowledging him as a serious opponent.

There’s a little under a month until all the polls and predictions will start giving way to actual results and the Democratic Party will start to find out who their presidential nominee will be–all of the candidates need as much help as they can get. At the end of the day, whether it stems from millennial women’s residual dreams of their own shot at being the first female president, or their honest faith in the Bernie Sanders platform, this support could be just what Bernie needs to snatch the nomination right out from under Hillary’s nose.

Alexandra Simone

Alex Simone is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street and a student at The George Washington University, studying Political Science. She is passionate about law and government, but also enjoys the finer things in life like watching crime dramas and enjoying a nice DC brunch. Contact Alex at ASimone@LawStreetmedia.com

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