ATLANTA – Loretta Green has been voting in her southwest Atlanta district for years, wearing the same custom T-shirt adorned with a photo of her first voter registration card, dated 1960. The front reads: “This is why I voice.”
Since gaining the legal right, Green, 88, has participated in every possible election. It will be no different in November, she said, when she votes for president Joe Biden and Democrats in trouble.
But conversations with her younger relatives, who have told her they are unsure whether they will vote or consider staying home, illustrate some of the challenges Biden’s campaign faces in reassembling his 2020 winning coalition, especially in important battlegrounds such as Georgia. While Greens and many older black voters are determined to vote and already have plans to do so, younger black voters, according to polls and focus group data, feel much less motivated to vote for Democrats, if at all.
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“For me, voting is almost sacred. Look what people have been through. The struggles. The people who allowed themselves to be defeated,” Green said of the civil rights movement that fueled her determination to vote in every election. “I think there are some young blacks who probably feel like this hasn’t even happened.”
Black voters have long been Democrats’ most loyal constituency, and high turnout from this bloc is crucial to Biden’s reelection. Any drop in support could jeopardize his chances of winning in November. And surveys have shown a striking generational divide within this bloc, driven by what many young people see as broken campaign promises and by what party leaders have suggested is the difficulty in communicating Biden’s performance to voters.
There is still time for Democrats to close this gap. But growing dissatisfaction among young voters, especially over the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip – illustrated in an April New York Times/Siena College poll showing that only 4% of voters under the age of 45 foreign policy approach – underlines the magnitude of the response that may be required from the president’s re-election campaign to bring young voters back into the ranks.
The stark difference between how older and younger Black voters are responding to Biden and the Democrats further highlights how different the messages to these voters will have to be.
“It’s a generation gap. They don’t know the people who fought and died for their rights,” said Terrance Woodbury, a Democratic pollster whose poll has found a nearly 30-point gap in support for Democrats among black voters ages 18 to 49 in compared to black voters. over 50. The latter group, he says, “knows those people. They saw that fight. Some of them were involved in that fight.”
Young Black voters point to higher costs of living, crises abroad and the advanced age of both major candidates – Biden, 81, is the oldest US president and former president Donald Trump is 77 – as reasons for their dissatisfaction. They also say they feel their lives have not improved under Biden’s presidency and have seen little of his campaign promises to lower housing costs, ease student loan debt and promote racial equality.
These complaints are not unique to young black voters. In polls, focus groups and interviews, record numbers of Black Americans of all ages and genders have expressed disillusionment with Democratic leaders. And the generational gap in support for Democrats is not unique to any one race. While most young voters support Democrats and turned out in droves during the 2020 presidential election and 2022 midterm elections, many have also said they are deeply dissatisfied with the party and see less reason for them to return.
“I can understand it,” said India Juarez, 46, a Southwest Atlanta resident and Democratic voter. “You have two people who should really be retired, enjoying their golden lives.”
Still, for older black voters, many of whom see Trump as a threat to their basic rights, keeping him and other Republicans from regaining power in November trumps their frustrations with Democrats. Black voters overwhelmingly continue to support Democratic candidates, and some are encouraging the younger people in their lives to do the same.
Rep. James E. Clyburn, D.S.C., an influential Biden ally who led college civil rights protests, said he had spent much of his time outside Washington on college campuses encouraging students to vote. But, he said, “it has to be an informed vote.”
“I don’t want people going there talking about, ‘There’s no difference between Trump and Biden.’ I’m going to show them what the differences are. “I want them to see why you should vote,” he said. He praised older Black voters who are encouraging their younger family members to register and vote.
Tari Turner, 52, a black Democratic voter from Detroit, is one of them. She said she often encourages her son, Brice Ballard, 34, to vote in elections, even when he is reluctant to do so.
‘I’ll let him vote. He votes, she said. ‘I’m not talking about him voting. I’m going to pick him up to vote.”
In November, she said she planned to vote and support Biden’s re-election — a fact she tepidly acknowledged. However, Ballard said he would not vote this year, despite his mother’s urging.
“I don’t feel any connection with either candidate,” he said, adding that he voted in the last presidential election. If he were to vote in November, he said he would likely support Trump because he believed he was better off economically under his presidency.
Ballard’s sentiments echo another concern for the Biden campaign: a shift to the right among nonwhite voters that is especially pronounced among young men of color. Trump and his campaign have recognized this and have made some attempts to woo black voters in recent months. Yet many are rooted in stereotypes and often offensive.
Biden’s campaign aims to encourage young Black voters to come out through more direct contact with them. Senior Biden campaign officials underscored his campaign’s presence on college campuses, online and at music festivals and sporting events. They added that the campaign is hiring a director of campus engagement who will focus on mobilizing students at historically black colleges and universities.
On air, the campaign is running several ads aimed at Black voters, highlighting the Biden administration’s work to lower health care costs and its heavy investments in historically Black colleges and universities. Democrats have also enlisted celebrities and local black elected officials to serve as surrogates.
That hasn’t kept the concerns of some black community leaders at bay. The New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan voter mobilization group, has been holding more focus groups with voters and adjusting the topics of discussion during canvassing efforts to address disaffected younger voters and the policy issues that matter to them. That way, says Kendra Cotton, the group’s CEO, organizers can explain to young voters how government can work — instead of admonishing them for refusing to participate in the political process.
“This story of people saying ‘oh, you should vote because so many people died for you to have that right,’ that doesn’t resonate at all with this new generation,” Cotton said. “And I think it’s distasteful that we continue to promote that narrative, no matter how true and rooted it is.”
Davan’te Jennings, chair of the Black Caucus of the Georgia Young Democrats, said he has had a series of conversations with younger Black voters who are not enthusiastic about voting. Some, he said, have expressed interest in supporting Republicans in November.
“They say, ‘We’ve been on this Democratic side for so long, they tell us all these things and nothing happens,’” he said. “Let’s see what’s here on the Republican side.”
Green, who said she was also concerned about the engagement of young voters, said she planned to volunteer with Biden’s campaign operation in Georgia to encourage young Black voters to come forward and talk to them about the importance of their vote – something she sees as both morally and politically significant.
“That’s why we have to tell them our story. They don’t understand,” she said. ‘They didn’t see it. And if we don’t keep talking to them and telling them the history, they won’t know.”
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