By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large
“We are focusing on policy, not personality politics,” said one of the 40 million young voters in place to go to the polls in November. The 22-year-old New Yorker did not want to give his name but told Our Time Press that many of his peers feel the same way. “We are looking at the issues, and solutions for problems with the economy, inflation, unemployment, criminal justice, gun violence, healthcare, the lack of affordable housing and education.”
Will there be a ‘Youthquake’ in the presidential election, similar to the one last month in the UK, which saw a sizable number of young people switching alliances from the major parties to relatively newer formed ones in the election for the prime minister?
There are 8 million eligible first-time American voters.
Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement states that 40.8 million members of Gen Z–18-27 will be eligible to vote in the 2024 presidential election and down the ballot. This includes 8.3 million newly eligible youth–18-19, approximately 45% of the Gen Z electorate in 2024, including 47% of newly eligible voters who have aged in, are youth of color.
Out of the 40.8 million, there are “8.8 million Latinos, 5.7 million Black youths, 1.7 million Asian-Americans, and 1.8 million multi-racial youth.”
Democratic Party hopes were dismal in the middle of July, right up until President Joe Biden announced that he would be exiting the presidential 2024 race and endorsing his Vice President, Kamala Harris.
Undoubtedly, there has been a groundswell of re-energized support since.
ABC News suggested, “Black voters are at least 10 percent of the population in several of the states most likely to decide the 2024 election— from Pennsylvania to Michigan to Florida. They also loom large in Georgia and North Carolina, states that have been close in the recent past. So, even small changes in Black Americans’ support for Democrats could take key states off the table.
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“VP Kamala Harris’s candidacy has the potential to win back Black voters who shifted away from Democrats when Biden was the nominee.”
New York 1 stated that with Harris at the top of the ticket, some Democrats argue that it “could reshape New York’s trajectory in November, potentially giving the party a better shot at flipping competitive seats.”
On Tuesday, August 6, 2024, Harris announced her VP as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. There have been substantial civic groups, grassroots organizing, and multi-million dollar fundraising in the Black community since Harris became the Democratic candidate just over 2 weeks ago.
The script almost writes itself – a former prosecutor versus a convicted felon, former president Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the Hillary Clintonesque “I carry hot sauce in my bag,” is not the tactic young voters are endorsing. Even as Harris and the Democrats hailed last week’s Atlanta Georgia rally support of a suited but twerking “Hotties for Harris,” Megan Thee Stallion, and former Migo rapper Quavo speaking out against gun violence, it is not immediately clear that even their listening audiences will be swayed by pandering ploys.
“We know young voters will be key, and we know your vote cannot be taken for granted,” Harris has reiterated to the Gen Z crowd and all those in earshot.
Key quotes and populist cliches activated, “We are not going back,” says Harris as her campaign slogan, while informing some incredulous observers, “I am in these streets.” Then, quoting the Migos, Harris said that her opponent, Donald Trump, does not “walk it like he talks it.”
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Georgia is a crucial swing state that Biden won by just under 12,000 votes in 2020.
“Too many politicians have failed our generation by putting their futures over ours,” stated Voters of Tomorrow. “We’re taking things into our own hands.”
The counter to the celebratory brouhaha is the ‘Black faces in high places’ style-over-substance conversation that looks deep into current domestic issues and what the future looks like for young people. They voice concern about the US standing worldwide, the effects of American foreign policy on real-time domestic outcomes – such as the current migrant crisis, and even the outsourcing of jobs and manufacturing.
Voters of Tomorrow was founded in 2019 by then-17-year-old Santiago Mayer, to increase political engagement at his high school, and he created “an organization for Gen Z, by Gen Z,” pushing youth mobilization. “We have too large a stake in our future to not make each of our voices heard,” Mayer said of his national organization. “With partners including our dozens of Youth Vote Champions, we will continue to harness the political power of Gen Z, deciding elections and legislation through 2024 and beyond.”
If the old adage stands true of “old men for counsel, young men for war,” then in 2024, Millennials, Gen Zs, and Gen Alphas need to get in the political trenches to let their positions be known and fought for.
There is the wave of Blacks for Trump who ignore his dozens of felonies, Project 2025 implications, and his well-documented race-based biases and policies.
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There are the people debating Harris’s personal racial identification and others referencing her history as the DA of San Francisco and her role as Attorney General of California. Her stance on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the devastation in Gaza, the predominance of Africom on the continent, and the effects of the migrant crisis at the Southern border seeping into U.S. cities, including New York–will cast doubt for some, but may not change the mind of ardent supporters who determine that she is the only option.
“Young people are facing unprecedented attacks on our freedoms and futures,” said Voters of Tomorrow. “Abortion rights, gun violence, the climate crisis, voter suppression, attacks on education rights—the list goes on. The issues our generation faces are devastating and overwhelming.”
What are some of the major issues on the table?
Housing said Voters of Tomorrow.
“It is incomprehensible that while roughly 600,000 are unhoused, more than 15,000,000 homes in the US are vacant. As wages have stagnated and the cost of living has increased, we must ensure that housing is affordable to all, especially young people.”
The group stresses too that, “Systemic racism is a part of our nation…Whether it is combating redlining, environmental racism, access to loans, racism in health care and medicine, racial profiling in education and policing, or racist voting laws –– we need to actively work to dismantle all institutions that continue to perpetuate racism.”
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