BUZZ
College students traditionally tend to vote for Democrats, and in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, under-30 voters took their concerns to the ballot box and turned out in droves for the party.
The 18-to-29 demographic is being credited with helping fuel the so-called blue tsunami, in which the Democratic Party won key gubernatorial victories in swing states and took control of both the House and the Senate
In Texas, where state Rep. Gina Hinojosa beat three-term Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, 63 percent of the youth vote when to the challenger, and in the U.S. Senate race, Democrat James Talarico beat Republican Ken Paxton with the help of 67 percent of the 18 to 29 demographic, according to data from the NORC Civic Health & Elections Project.
In South Carolina, a longtime Republican stronghold, Democrat Annie Andrews beat Republican Darline Graham for the U.S. Senate, with 66 percent of the youth vote tallied for Andrews.
In Michigan, in a tight race between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers, 65 percent of the youth vote went to the victor, El-Sayed.
“Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign treated college students as a central part of its path to the Senate, holding numerous town halls, rallies and appearances,” the Michigan Daily reported, noting the school’s two campus voting hubs logged 8,529 early votes and 2,668 same-day registration votes and that young voters “across Michigan turned out in record numbers this election cycle.”
The 2026 midterms is also when the young vote “snapped back toward the Democratic Party,” as opposed to being more favorable to Republicans in the 2024 cycle, the Associated Press reported.
“The AP Voter Poll showed about 7 in 10 voters under 30 nationally said they supported the Democratic candidate in their local U.S. House race, while about 3 in 10 said they voted for the Republican. That was a dramatic shift from 2024, when the youngest voters were roughly split between Trump and Harris,” AP reported.
However, AP added both young voters and first-time voters made up “a fairly small share of voters … which limited the impact of the shift.”
Data from the NORC Civic Health & Elections Project show that there is no state except Nebraska in which young Republican voters outpaced their Democratic counterparts, according to results as of Nov. 5.
“In several major battleground states, the youth vote may have played an outsized role in Democratic victories. In the Georgia gubernatorial race, where Keisha Lance Bottoms won a closely contested election, 70% of young voters backed Bottoms. In that state’s Senate race, 71% of youth supported Democrat Jon Ossoff. More than 70% of youth also supported Democrats in the Minnesota Senate and Governor races, where both candidates won,” the group reported.
MORE: Professor who once donated to Abdul El-Sayed in charge of UMich get-out-the-vote efforts
