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According to Abby Kiesa, deputy director of CIRCLE, a major factor in the increase has been the work of organizations that arose after 2014 to try to improve campus voting rates.

"Outreach, contact, investment in these states was higher," said CIRCLE deputy director Abby Kiesa about key battlegrounds. "So it's not surprising that voter turnout is higher in these states."

An analysis of the 2018 midterms by CIRCLE found that young women turned out in greater numbers than young men, and that more of them voted for Democrats in that election.

Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, the director of CIRCLE, said the youngest members of the 18-to-29 group had been driven to embrace politics in a way their elders had not.

CIRCLE Director Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg talks about young people's electoral impact in the 2022 midterms.

CIRCLE estimates that 27 percent of eligible young voters cast ballots this election, the second-highest turnout for a midterm in nearly 30 years. “This is a continuation of young people showing up to do the work,” says Abby Kiesa, CIRCLE’s deputy director.

According to new data shared by Tufts University's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, young people were the only age group in which a strong majority supported Democrats.

"In close races, the big margins from young people, from youth of color, from young Latinos, can be really influential," Alberto Medina, CIRCLE’s communications lead, told NBC News.

"Young people absolutely did have a role in preventing that red wave from materializing as it was predicted to," said CIRCLE's elections coordinator Ruby Belle Booth.