Overall Youth Turnout Down From 2020 But Strong in Battleground States

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (Nov. 6, 2024)—Voter turnout among young people ages 18-29 was 42% (with +/- 1% margin of error) overall in the 2024 presidential election, and much higher—50% on aggregate—in key battleground states across the country (GA, MI, NV, NC, PA, WI).

As of this moment, it appears that youth turnout was lower than in the historic 2020 election, for which our initial turnout estimate was 52%-55%, and on par with 2016, when our early estimate put youth turnout at 42%-44%. These new youth turnout estimates are released today by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), the preeminent, non-partisan research center on youth engagement at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. 

Millions of young voters turned out across the country in a momentous presidential election year. Almost 50 million young citizens ages 18 to 29 years old could register and vote in the 2024 election, which included over 8 million youth who turned 18 since the 2022 midterm election, and millions more who turned 18 since the last presidential election.  

Read all our analyses of the 2024 youth vote here.

These exit poll-based turnout estimates could shift slightly once all votes are counted. As of November 7, they also exclude turnout in Arizona and California, where the percent of votes counted remains too low for reliable calculations. And in early 2025 we will revise our voter turnout estimates based on voter file data that is not currently available. 

Young Voters Shifted Toward Trump but Still Favored Harris Overall 

Young voters did not vote monolithically. According to CIRCLE analyses of the AP VoteCast Survey, nationally 52% of youth voted for Vice President Harris and 46% of youth voted for President Trump. That is a notable shift toward Trump in the youth vote: in 2020 he received 36% of votes from 18- to 29-year-old voters. 

In all of the major battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, young people were more likely to vote for Harris—though in some of these states the difference between youth support for Trump and for Harris is within the margin of error. And while millions of young people voted for Vice President Harris and she won more youth votes in 22 states for which we currently have data, millions supported former President Trump, who won young voters in 17 states. In 2020, Trump had won the youth vote in just seven states. 

Young people who chose issues like racism, abortion, and climate change as their top priority in the 2024 election were the most likely to support Harris. However, 40% of youth chose “the economy and jobs” as their top priority—by far the highest of any issue, and those youth voted for Trump by a more than 22-point margin. Immigration was the third most commonly chosen top issue among youth overall, and the young people who chose it voted for President Trump by a nearly 70-point margin.

Major Youth Choice Differences by Gender and Race 

Some of the largest vote choice differences among youth were by gender and by race/ethnicity. Young women supported Harris over Trump by 18 points, while young men supported Trump by 14 points. That was another major shift from 2020, when young men had supported President Biden over President Trump.

That was also the case when it comes to white youth, who voted for Trump over Harris in 2024 (54% to 44%) despite having preferred Biden in 2020. On other hand, strong majorities of Black, Asian, and Latino youth backed Harris in 2024, though by slightly smaller margins than they had favored Biden in 2020. 

“This drop in overall youth voter turnout occurs despite the extraordinary efforts of many young leaders and organizers to engage their peers and their communities. Young people know their communities best, and more of us can better support their work to eliminate inequities in youth voting,” said Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of Tisch College’s CIRCLE.

“Young people are an incredibly diverse group of voters in terms of their identities and perspectives. They have already gone through profoundly impactful events in their lives: from school shootings to wars and global pandemics. We have to continue working to understand how the views and needs of different groups of youth may be evolving," added Kawashima-Ginsberg.

More on Young Voters in 2024

• Voter Registration: Among the youngest citizens during this election cycle, 18- and 19-year-olds registered in numbers higher than 2020 (the election with the highest registration in 50 years) in more than a dozen states for which data was available.

  • Michigan led increases in voter registration among youth, likely helped by new policy changes such as youth pre-registration and automatic voter registration. These are state policies which previous CIRCLE analysis has shown to have a positive relationship to youth participation.  

• Youth and the Issues: Young voters were as likely as all voters to say the economy/jobs was their top issue in the 2024 election, while youth were about half as likely as all voters to choose immigration.  

  • Just four percent of youth chose “foreign policy” as their top issue in the election (respondents were allowed to select only one issue). Among youth who chose foreign policy as their top priority, 8% voted for a third-party candidate, higher than the youth overall (2%), which may suggest a movement away from the major candidates by youth who prioritized the situation in the Middle East.