The Biden Disaster for Democrats, and the Cataclysmic Political Realignment of Young Voters
Joe Biden is currently shedding young and minority voters at breakneck speed, prompting concerned progressives to ponder the reason as to why this is happening.
Biden has clearly been struggling with nonwhite voters, and that’s a huge problem for Democrats when you consider that four-in-ten Democrat voters are nonwhite. But while his lead has softened among black and Hispanic voters, it’s his bleeding young voters that has to be most distressing for Democrats.
In swing states, which are the only states that matter in any presidential election, the vote tally in 2020 among voters under the age of 30 suggested a 23-point lead over Trump. Today, polling data suggest Trump is not only leading by 3-points in those states in a head-to-head matchup, but maintains a 10-point lead over Biden in a poll that includes third party candidates.
This is a disastrous sea change in the political landscape for Democrats that few could have foreseen.
Losing ground with minority voters, as they are, is a catastrophe for Democrats. But for a Democrat presidential candidate to be trounced in the polls by a Republican among voters under 30? That’s truly something I could have never imagined.
Voters under 30 have been the most natural Democrat constituents there are, given that they are more likely to be enticed by promises of big government redistribution than the 35-year-old who moves to the suburbs, has a family, and has realized that he just wants the government to leave him and his family the hell alone. This has always been a replenishing source of votes for Democrats, because new young people who want government handouts, higher minimum wage, free healthcare, etc., will replace those who defect to the Republican Party as they get older.
So, why is Biden losing Americans under 30? I’d offer two reasons.
The first is really simple. He’s an 81-year-old, addle-brained, mush-mouthed, and physically deteriorating representation of the status quo. Biden just couldn’t possibly be more of a square, and trotting out geriatric has-been actors to deliver cringy puns and yell at Trump supporters probably isn’t helping, considering that 62% of young voters already have an unfavorable opinion of Biden himself.
Trump, on the other hand, appears to have something of a rebellious, countercultural appeal for younger voters. Among voters under 30, for example, “Trump gets a net-positive rating – 49%-42%. That’s the highest favorability rating for Trump of any of the age groups.”
But there’s a more practical reason these potential voters are abandoning Biden, too.
The inflation experienced as a result of Biden’s spending spree is acutely impacting these young people in their early careers, and to a much greater degree than it is affecting older voters.
The Fed money printers introduced roughly $7 trillion into asset markets during the pandemic, says economist Peter St. Onge at the Brownstone Institute. This “leaves the rich richer and the poor coping with inflation.” He goes on:
Hence the media’s favorite economic theme these days: Why can’t Americans see the glory of Bidenomics. After all, if you’re a journalist at the New York Times, or an economics professor at Harvard, everybody at your dinner party owns a home. They own stocks. They’re doing great, regaling one another about their investing acumen.
Alas, the 90% aren’t at those dinner parties to regale. They can only speak at the ballot boxes.
You see, when Biden’s Fed jacked the money printers up to ludicrous speed, it helped some Americans. It was jet fuel to equity markets which helped stock portfolios and retirement accounts, and it greased the palms of several Democrat-friendly tech and green energy companies, and made borrowing money artificially cheap for a while.
But none of that really benefits a 25-year-old today, whether he’s a plumber or a college grad.
Younger workers don’t typically earn as much income as more experienced workers. They didn’t have the capital to buy a home when rates were low, they can’t save for a home now because their wages aren’t keeping up with cost increases for basic necessities, and they are paying insanely inflated prices for things like rent, food, and energy. And, though home ownership was once a common feature of the American dream, these 25-year-olds are largely priced out of the housing market due to high prices and high interest rates. For many of them, the prospect of home ownership or a family is just a pipe dream.
Meanwhile, older Americans are doing pretty well and are spending money freely in the economy. Their retirement accounts are likely fairly healthy, and those collecting state pensions or Social Security probably received a fairly nice pay raise in recent years, given that their redistributed income (provided by younger Americans via taxation) is tied to inflation.
These older Americans aren’t looking for a house unless they’re looking to downsize after the nest is empty or they retire, but they’re in the quite comfortable situation of not being in any rush to sell. They probably locked in a very manageable 3–4% mortgage and have a ton of equity in their homes, after all.
As St. Onge says, “renters and homeowners are living in entirely different economies.” Older American homeowners are pretty flush with cash, while younger Americans desperately fighting inflation, and they are the least equipped to handle it.
And this is the likeliest reason that Biden seems to be maintaining a nice lead among suburban women, but is bleeding young voters, and he is “hemorrhaging support from voters without a college degree.”
None of this is rocket science, and while both parties are responsible for these circumstances to some extent, young people wanting to launch their careers and lives are undoubtedly beginning to long for the days when the economy was unmistakably stronger before the pandemic, and when a senile old man wasn’t telling them that all of their problems would be solved if he’s able to unconstitutionally take money from the plumbers and truck drivers among them to pay off a small portion of the loans taken out by the college students among them.
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Jesus Christ is King
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