US presidential election: Courting the youth vote

1 year ago

In this edition of Entre Nous, we take a look at how US presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have both been courting the youth vote in what remains a very tight race for the White House. We're joined by FRANCE 24's James Andre and Jesse Dimich-Louvet.
A programme produced by Amanda Alexander, Marina Pajovic and Georgina Robertson.

Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com

Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English

Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00This election is set to be decided by a handful of key battleground states.

00:04That's because the presidency isn't secured by who secures the most votes,

00:08but rather who wins the electoral college.

00:15The U.S. presidential election is a nationwide vote,

00:18but each time the race comes down to a handful of states that truly decide the winner,

00:24known as swing states or battleground states.

00:27Why is this? It's all thanks to a unique process called the electoral college.

00:32Here's how it works. The U.S. is made up of 50 states,

00:36and each holds its own contest for president.

00:39The winner of each state earns that state's electoral votes,

00:43with a number based on population.

00:45The number of electors that each state gets is directly related to their representation in Congress.

00:51So Wyoming has one member of the House of Representatives and two senators.

00:56That means that they've got three electoral college votes.

00:58By contrast, California, which is very populous, has 52 representatives and then two senators,

01:03so they have 54 electoral college votes.

01:05In total, the electoral college consists of 538 electors,

01:10so a majority of 270 electoral votes is required to win the presidency.

01:16In 2024, some states are nearly certain to choose the Republican candidate,

01:21such as Texas and Florida.

01:23Others predictably vote for the Democratic candidate, like California and New York.

01:28The states that remain, those are the swing states,

01:32the ones where the race is so competitive their electors could potentially be won by either candidate.

01:38It's voters in these states that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

01:42have focused their time and money on trying to win over.

01:46We win Pennsylvania. We win this great commonwealth.

01:50We are going to win the whole ballgame. It's such an important place.

01:53And so Wisconsin, today I ask you, are you ready to make your voices heard?

01:59The states considered battlegrounds change each election.

02:03Usually it's one, two, maybe three states.

02:06This year, there are seven states where either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris could win.

02:12Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.

02:19The electoral college system also means it's entirely possible to win the most votes nationally,

02:25but still lose the presidential election.

02:28This happened in 2016 when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote,

02:32but Donald Trump won the electoral college and therefore the presidency.

02:37The electoral college has come under attack by groups who will point to the fact that

02:41Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016,

02:45that Al Gore won the popular vote in the year 2000,

02:48and yet the electoral college biased the outcomes in favor of the Republican.

02:52Now this is not built into the system to favor Republicans.

02:54It just so happened that the electoral college in those times did.

02:57Supporters of the electoral college say it forces candidates to campaign across a range of states

03:04instead of only focusing on big urban areas.

03:07And like it or not, this has been the process in the U.S. since 1787,

03:12and it plays a deciding role in who gets to sit in the White House.

03:18Now with the latest poll suggesting the election will be a toss-up,

03:22both candidates have been trying to reach out to as many voters as possible,

03:26including getting Gen Zs on board.

03:29Now we'll be talking about this with France 24 senior reporter James André,

03:33as well as Jesse Dimitri-Louvet, who joins us here.

03:37James, let me quickly ask you first,

03:39what are the strengths and weaknesses when it comes to two candidates and luring in this youth vote?

03:44Yeah, absolutely.

03:45Well, you know, usually the Democrats do quite well with the youth vote,

03:49and it's obviously one of the main topics in this specific campaign

03:53when it comes to Kamala Harris is, of course, reproductive rights, freedom of choice.

03:59It's also, of course, the fact that she is not Donald Trump,

04:02which in this case is very important,

04:06and basically being more progressive, if you will, than Donald Trump.

04:09When it comes to weaknesses, we have seen protests on campus,

04:12on campuses across the United States when it comes to the policy of Joe Biden regarding Israel,

04:17and she could suffer from that.

04:18People basically wanting to punish her and not coming out to vote.

04:21Then again, that would probably be very marginal.

04:23When it comes to Donald Trump, now he is obviously has a tougher sell,

04:27if you will, with the Gen Z population.

04:30But both candidates, I mean, have been going to podcasts, trying to address this demographic.

04:36And what he's trying to do is appeal to young men who feel, I'd say,

04:40under attack, if you like, by feminist values or progressive values.

04:43And this has been quite obvious, for example, when he went to a podcast by Joe Rogan.

04:48But it's been a campaign theme being, you know, this man's man, if you will.

04:53And that is something that does appear to be appealing to a part of the younger male population.

05:00Let's speak to someone who's young.

05:02And from the France 24 newsroom, Jesse, you recently voted in a battleground state.

05:07What was that like? How did it work?

05:09Yeah, I mean, it was quite easy, actually.

05:11I mean, I had voted in previous elections for Montana.

05:13This time, there's a lot of states that you can vote.

05:16In the previous address that you had in the United States,

05:19I went to school at Temple University in Philadelphia, right in the heart of Pennsylvania,

05:23where it all sort of matters right now, where the eyes are turned.

05:26And so I was able to register to vote via e-mail.

05:29A couple weeks later, I received a ballot that I printed at home, filled out.

05:34I had three choices, one on who I wanted to vote for, for senator, for a congress member,

05:38and then also, of course, for the presidency.

05:41Ballots can be sometimes very complicated.

05:43Mine was pretty straightforward.

05:44I was able to drop it off at the embassy here in Paris.

05:48And a week later, I got a confirmation that my ballot was received and counted.

05:51So what efforts did the candidates make to reach out to young voters in the state of Pennsylvania, for instance?

05:57Yeah, I mean, we, as James mentioned, a lot of rallies in Pennsylvania,

06:00specifically on college campuses like Temple University.

06:04We had Donald Trump come in June.

06:06Kamala Harris came last week with Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen, really bringing out that star power.

06:11And we've seen it in the past.

06:13Kamala Harris was at the University of Michigan on Sunday really trying to make that argument to college-educated voters.

06:20But I also want to make a distinction between college-educated voters and non-college-educated voters

06:24and what that can do in terms of the margin of people that are turning out to vote

06:30and also who they're voting for, of course, the non-college-educated vote breaking much more towards Trump

06:35than it does for Biden in the past and for the Democrats.

06:39James, before the summer holidays, we saw protests across several college campuses in the United States

06:47over the U.S.'s support to Israel, given that the war in Gaza continues.

06:53Has Kamala Harris done enough to distance herself from the policies of Joe Biden

06:58and say she'd suggest she'd be any different?

07:01Well, that's a real question mark.

07:03The fact of the matter is she's come out and said, right, you know, I want –

07:06I mean, she just did it a couple of days ago.

07:08On Sunday, exactly.

07:09Yeah, exactly.

07:10She went to Michigan to try and convince Arab-American voters to vote for her.

07:14But, you know, her message is to say, right, we need a ceasefire.

07:18She says we need, you know, to return the hostages, we need safety for Israel.

07:22And we want, you know, dignity and peace for the Palestinian people,

07:26which has been her pitch for a few months now, trying to be, I'd say,

07:30to appear at least less in favor of Israel than Joe Biden was.

07:34But the fact of the matter is when you look at the editorials actually across the Arab world,

07:37now these are not, you know, the American voters in a sense,

07:42but of course it's something that this demographic will be watching,

07:45is that a lot of editorialists say, right, you know, she has been in power for the last two years.

07:49That administration has done, you know, has done nothing to stop this war.

07:53That's at least how it's seen or has not succeeded.

07:56And what's going to be different now?

07:58And in a sense, some of them also, this is once again the Arab world,

08:01are saying, you know, maybe Donald Trump will make something radical, different,

08:05and stop everything in the name of not wanting a war in the Middle East.

08:09Obviously, this is a long shot.

08:11But the fact of the matter is, will these people come out and vote for Kamala Harris?

08:14That is a big question mark.

08:16We saw that in the primary, 110,000 of them refused to endorse Joe Biden

08:20in the primary.

08:21They wrote uncommitted on the ballots.

08:23Well, will these people come out and vote for Kamala Harris?

08:27We'll have to see.

08:28Of course, a lot is at stake.

08:29Exactly.

08:30And I just want to bring you in, Jesse,

08:32because is that something that is topping voters' minds, your generation's minds,

08:36as they go to the polls?

08:37What is it?

08:38Is it getting a job?

08:39Yeah, I would say a confluence of factors.

08:41It's abortion, obviously, for, you know,

08:44reproductive rights have been on the ballot now, second election.

08:47And I would also say student loan debts.

08:50Will Kamala Harris continue in her boss's vein of trying to cancel student relief?

08:56She has made a pledge to do so on her website.

08:59Trump, meanwhile, has really tried to make that appeal to the sort of the rejected

09:04from society, young male who feels at a loss,

09:08sort of with this hyper-masculine messaging.

09:10And the real question is, is will it work out for Trump?

09:15Because these are voters who don't have a history of going to the polls on Election Day

09:19or voting by mail.

09:21And so that will be sort of the big gamble, I guess, from Donald Trump's perspective.

09:25And what can we extrapolate from previous elections from what Gen Z has done in the past?

09:30Yeah, so, I mean, Gen Z has always sort of tend to vote more Democratic.

09:35But, you know, again, we're seeing here with Donald Trump's sort of messaging

09:40over the last months going on podcasts like Joe Rogan, like Charlie Kirk,

09:44really trying to appeal to this voter.

09:47And like I said, with the college divide, if you look here at the numbers,

09:51we're seeing that margin dwindle between 2016, 2020, and now to be seen in 2024.

09:59But I think that that will be sort of a key thing to keep an eye on in this coming election

10:04is how those other voters are going to break.

10:08I think it's also interesting the point you made about the kind of voter Donald Trump is going after,

10:13this toxic masculinity, which we've heard on the campaign trail,

10:16because we also have Tim Walz.

10:18The Republicans have tried to aim at him for measures he's taken in his home state.

10:24Yeah, the famous tampon Tim.

10:27No, but the thing is, I think that what Donald Trump is trying to do is energize what he imagines

10:32or what he sees to be a potential conservative youth that's on the campuses.

10:38And he's been using organizations for this.

10:41The most well-known one is probably Turning Point USA.

10:44I don't know if you've heard of them, but it is a group of students who have been going around campuses,

10:48basically officially to turn out the vote, but who are actually conservatives

10:53and who are a pack who is behind Donald Trump and who are trying, if you like,

10:57to energize what they see as a potential conservative young Gen Z base that's at university right now

11:04or in college or not even in college, but they are very much aiming at colleges to try and, if you like,

11:11create this idea that there are two ideas that are, according to them, too progressive

11:16and they need to be fought, and they're against cancel culture, et cetera.

11:19And this is something that does appear to have worked quite well.

11:21These people are well-funded and they've got means, if you take Turning Point USA,

11:25and they can be quite efficient, and they've been working in all the swing states.

11:28So all these strategies, you add that plus the podcast plus, obviously, social media, it could have an impact.

11:36We'll see how things pan out. Jesse, James, thank you so much for joining us.

US presidential election: Courting the youth vote

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended