Young voters played a critical role in helping elect President Joe Biden to the White House. But now some progressive groups warn that the president will have to do more to win back support among these voters on issues such as gun reform, student debt, climate change and the Israel-Hamas war.
Dakota Hall – executive director of the Alliance for Youth Action, a national network of local organizations that aims to mobilize young voters – told CNN that Biden is running out of time to demonstrate to these voters, who were key to Biden’s coalition in 2020, that he will fulfill his 2020 campaign promises even as the president’s efforts to sign more bills into law are likely to be stalled in a divided Congress.
Hall was elated when he received an invitation last year to the White House for his progressive group to attend a youth summit, which made him feel optimistic that Biden was finally making good on his promise to keep listening to young voters. But now, nearly a year later, Hall says his hope is beginning to fade.
“Young people work so hard to get them (elected) in 2020 … and they’re not necessarily feeling valued or like their work was appreciated because they’re not being listened to,” Hall told CNN.
Hall and other groups have said that they are giving Biden until the summer to see him heed their call or else they warn that he could lose a significant part of his base.
Since Biden came into office, he has fulfilled several promises from the 2020 campaign trail. For instance, last year, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, which includes key provisions to reduce carbon emissions. The president has also recommitted the United States to the Paris climate agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which the Trump administration had withdrawn from, claiming that it would undermine the country’s economy.
On gun reform, Biden also signed the first major piece of bipartisan gun safety legislation in decades and created the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention that would address gun violence in the country.
Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, said that next year’s election is “deeply consequential for young people” and added that Biden will continue delivering “on the issues that matter to young people.”
“We are working hard to highlight how an extreme MAGA agenda would devastate the financial security, safety, and freedom of young people, and how President Biden and Vice President Harris are fighting for the future that America’s young people deserve,” Munoz said in a statement.
But Biden has also fallen short of implementing major reforms on the immigration system and student debt relief due to legal challenges and difficulty passing progressive pieces of legislation through the GOP-controlled House chamber in Congress.
Still, Cliff Albright – co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund – said that Black voters have been underwhelmed by the “lack of movement” Biden has made on some of his 2020 campaign promises, including canceling some student loan debt.
Albright told CNN that The New York Times and Siena College polls reflect the reality of how many Black voters feel about Biden right now.
“We were never excited about Joe Biden,” he said. “We are very pragmatic, and we understood … that nobody represented the best chance to beat Trump.”
Since Biden came into office, the White House Office of Public Engagement has regularly held listening sessions with progressive groups to discuss various issues like gun reform, student debt and climate change. Some progressive groups say that these listening sessions have allowed these organizations to push the administration to do more on issues that young voters care about and have served as another vehicle to let these groups be a part of conversations with officials who play a role in creating federal policies that they otherwise would have been excluded from.
Trevon Bosley, a board chair for March For Our Lives, an organization that focuses on gun violence prevention, said that his group played an active role in getting the White House to create the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and considers that a big win.
He added that the White House holding these listening sessions finally addresses the “disconnect there has been between people who are actually dealing with gun violence and those in office.”
“Now that we have this seat at this table, we can tell the true needs that are needed and not just go by on data but actual real-life experiences,” Bosley said in an interview.
Biden will also have to make the case to young voters over what he’s accomplished in his foreign policy, Hall said. Foremost among the foreign crises for young voters right now is the Israel-Hamas conflict, as Gaza is facing a humanitarian crisis and the president is under scrutiny from these groups on how he responds.
“Young people are looking for him to be a lot louder on human rights issues for them, and they’re not necessarily seeing that on a day-to-day basis,” Hall said.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Party told CNN that Biden’s presidential campaign is working on implementing several strategies the DNC has used in the past 2022 midterm election cycle to engage with more young voters, such as creating training programs for youth organizers and conducting outreach on college campuses.
But some progressive groups say that if they do not see more things accomplished on these domestic issues, it could result in low voter turnout among young voters and voters of color. Simon Rosenberg, a veteran Democratic strategist, said there is currently a vast divide between the president and young voters.
Rosenberg added that since the presidential election is a year out, it is still too early to tell whether young people will continue supporting Biden.
“Young people are distant to Biden. Biden is going to have a lot of work to do to get the kind of young people he needs. But can we do it? Yeah, of course, we can do it. … But it’s going to require work. It’s not a given.”
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