How much do primary debates REALLY affect youth voters?
In a day and age where the mere word “politicians” carries a stigma and only 14% of the public approves of the way Congress is carrying out its duties, it is not hard to see why the voter turnout is shockingly low, trailing most other developed nations. For a myriad of reasons, youth voter turn out is even lower. These facts lead one to question how much youth voters are affected by pre-election outreach strategies, namely debates.
Attempts at Mobilizing the Youth
Considering the limited extent of empirical research done on primary campaign debates, it is safe to assume that even less research has been conducted on youth response to primary debates. For this reason, I will draw upon previous notable attempts at engaging youth interest in politics and analyze their successes and failures.
Back in 2003, CNN hosted a special, casual-style debate called “Rock the Vote” where students could openly ask candidates questions about policies, stances, and more. The candidates all appeared in casual clothes and were right off the bat advised to “keep things real”. CNN described the event as a “hip” forum aimed at younger voters.
Another more recent attempt at engaging younger voters, through social media specifically, is observed through Hillary Clinton’s Twitter handle.
Recently, politicians have been striving to perfect the use of social media through research, utilizing younger interns who “understand” online etiquette, and sometimes blatantly blindly trying new methods just to see how they pan out.
Hillary Clinton’s Twitter is an example of how this can go wrong. She tweeted during this campaign cycle, attempting to engage youth voters, but instead it backfired in a fairly awful way.
The tweet definitely engaged people of the Twitter-using age, but perhaps in a way she was not anticipating.
Conclusions
Many times when campaign teams try to reach out to engage the youth voters, their attempts come off as condescending and under-researched. In fact, when surveyed about CNN’s “Rock the Vote” special event, viewers tended to become significantly less trusting of the government following the segment.
Hillary Clinton has faced her own set of challenges following the debate. Youth voters tend to be less trusting of her, think she is unauthentic, and have started to make their own memes to describe their sentiments towards her.
Because of a few previous failed attempts at connecting with younger demographics, many youth voters now see her as out of touch with the times and more of a “politician” than before.
Bottom line is, when engaging the youth in voting, or in debates, don’t try to patronize them. More often than not, those attempts are quickly picked up on and declared inauthentic and desperate. If you want the youth to be engaged and interested, the debate must be a combination of relevant to their interests and concerns, while avoiding being “dumbed down”.
