Our 2018 Midterm Election Highlights
This week, we’re celebrating Millennial politicians and voters by sharing our midterm election highlights. Share your highlights in the comments!
Before the midterm elections, we released a poll on millennial “Solutions Voters” conducted with a bipartisan team of pollsters. We are highlighting the results: Millennials care about the issues, particularly addressing the immigration and refugee population. We found that 33.9% of Millennials are most motivated to vote for candidates with whom they agree on the issues, regardless of political affiliation.
The desire to find solutions motivated hundreds of Millennials to run for office and that same desire inspired thousands of young voters to vote. Michael McDonald, University of Florida political scientist, estimates that about 116 million voters turned out to participate in the 2018 elections. This is an impressive number — midterm elections have historically low voter participation rates, and 2018 saw the highest turnout in over a century! According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, 31% of voters aged 18 to 29 cast ballots in the midterms. The data is a historic voting turnout record for young people.
We believed in Millennial candidates and Millennial voters. Last week, the country witnessed over 30 Millennials be elected to Congress! We congratulate these young policymakers on their successful campaigns and future leadership. The 116th Congress includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Abby Finkenauer of Iowa, who are about to be the youngest members of Congress at 29 years old. The average age of Members of Congress is 58 years old in the House and 62 years in the Senate. With the 2019 freshman class, that average age is about to change! Check out a running list of Millennial members of Congress on our website.
One week after these new Millennial-age elected Members of Congress were announced, we hosted Across the Red and Blue Divide, our fifth Red & Blue Dialogue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We hosted in partnership with The Journal Sentinel, WUWM 89.7 FM — Milwaukee’s NPR, and the Zeidler Center for Public Discussion. Once again, we were impressed by turnout and dialogue among the community. Representatives Adam Neylon (R) and Amanda Stuck (D), co-chairs of the Wisconsin Future Caucus, both participated in the night, answering attendees’ questions and sharing their ideas for future bipartisan opportunities.
When Rep. Neylon asked the audience who had voted, almost all hands were up! Watch their bipartisan discussion here.
2019 is shaping out to be a banner year of political engagement for all ages and a promising year for Millennial leadership — we’re here for that!
