CNN Poll: Harris leads Trump among young voters but falls short of Biden’s 2024 winning margin

CNN
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Vice President Kamala Harris holds a 12-point lead over former President Donald Trump among voters younger than 35 – a group that’s largely dissatisfied with the influence it holds in American politics, but remains optimistic about the country’s future, according to new CNN polling conducted by SSRS.

Harris leads Trump 52% to 40% among these likely voters younger than 35. That still suggests a tighter race among this group than in 2020, when President Joe Biden ended up with a 21-point margin among the same age group, according to exit polls. But it marks a return to more typical voting patterns after polls earlier in the year showed Biden struggling to rally youth support for a second term.

The gender gap seen across voters of all ages is present among this group as well. Where female likely voters younger than 35 prefer Harris over Trump, 53% to 39%, male likely voters are closely divided. And among registered voters, young women are 15 points likelier than men to express a positive view of Harris.

Polling on young voters’ presidential preference has ranged significantly over the past year. While most recent polling suggests a return-to-form for young voters favoring the Democratic nominee following Harris’ rise to the top of the ticket, these surveys offer varying pictures of the scale of Harris’ advantage with this group. Not every pollster reports the same range of ages in assessing younger voters’ preferences, but even in the last few days, national polling on the state of the race has found a margin among younger voters as tight as Harris +3 (in the Quinnipiac University poll of likely voters age 18 to 34) and as broad as Harris +32 (in the Harvard Institute of Politics poll of likely voters age 18 to 29).

The latest CNN poll surveyed a larger sample of younger voters than is typical in most national polls in order to have greater confidence in the results among this critical voting bloc. It suggests a slightly wider margin for Harris among likely voters under 30 (55% Harris to 38% Trump with that group) than among those age 18 to 34.

In a race largely ossified by partisanship, the CNN poll shows young voters may be among the most potentially movable part of the electorate: 19% of likely voters younger than 35 say they’re less than fully set on a choice this election, compared with 12% among those 35 and older. There’s also more uncertainty about which younger voters will cast a ballot at all. Among young registered voters, only about half say that they’re extremely motivated to vote or that they feel it’s extremely important that they themselves vote, both numbers that are significantly lower than among older groups.

Young Trump supporters are 10 points less likely than young Harris supporters to describe themselves as extremely motivated and 11 points less likely to place extreme importance on their own vote, a finding that mirrors other recent polling on this age group. There’s also a gender divide, with young female registered voters 13 points likelier than their male counterparts to say they feel their own vote is extremely important.