HeadCount commissioned HIT Strategies, a public opinion research firm, to conduct a poll of 1,000 registered youth voters, with the goal of understanding what made young registered voters decide whether or not they would participate in the election this year. The poll, surveying voters who were 18 to 34 years old, asked a series of questions about the 2024 Presidential election, media consumption, and perception of election officials to gather data of issues that are top of mind for young voters. The survey showed that young registered voters across the U.S. are not a monolith, with gaps in perspective, priorities, and ideology by gender, race, generation, and media source. Young registered voters need to be convinced of their vote’s power to make change on the issues that matter most to them, or we risk losing their participation in the electoral process. The entire memo can be found here and a summary of our findings is below.
When comparing genders and media consumption:
- Young men are twice as likely to to trust podcasts, and significantly more likely to trust X and YouTube for political news;
- Young women tend to trust TikTok, national news stations, local TV stations and informational articles online for political news.
When comparing party voters and media consumption:
- Harris voters trust news from online articles, international outlets and national TV news stations;
- Trump voters were more likely to trust podcasts and X.
When asked about issues important to them:
- Young registered voters whose top issue was immigration or abortion voted at higher rates -- indicating that the issues pushed them to the polls this year;
- The top issue for young registered voters was inflation/cost of living, with political corruption as the second most important issue.
HeadCount works closely with artists partners to register and turnout our voters, and when asked how they feel about celebrities and influencers endorsing candidates, about half of young people wanted celebrities and influencers to encourage their audience to vote (56%), share information on how to register to vote (51%), speak out on domestic issues (50%), and speak out on global issues (48%). Few (18%) said celebrities shouldn't talk about politics at all and most young people surveyed wanted celebrities to use their platforms to promote civic engagement, but they disagreed about celebrities taking a partisan stance on candidates and ballot initiatives.
Looking ahead...
- Our data reports that young voters see elected officials as having power to make change in their lives, for better or worse;
- Strong majorities say the president (73% a lot/some change), U.S. Congress (65%), their local government (64%), the governor of their state (63%), and their state Congress (62%) are able to make some or a lot of change in their lives.
- Young registered voters feel positively about their own futures (66% very or somewhat positive), but negatively about the future of the country (41% very or somewhat negative) and planet (47% very or somewhat negative).
In the 2024 election cycle, we registered more than 495,000 people through hundreds of digital campaigns and 3,797 concerts and events across the nation, culminating in more than 3.32 million digital actions thanks to its incredible crew of 90,000 volunteers and its robust digital audience.
We will use the findings from this poll to understand what young people are most focused on now and shape how we reach these voters in 2025 and beyond. As Lucille Wenegieme, HeadCount Executive Director, said: "The heart of American politics is still grassroots. Facilitating a new generation of civic leaders is our mission, and the best way to do that is to make sure individuals are registered to vote from the moment they turn 18 – one concert at a time.”