Rock the Vote president Carolyn DeWitt said Monday that young voters are increasingly pushing back against Trump administration policies at the ballot box.
“I think there is a reaction to, sort of, the aggressive maneuvers of the administration on progressive values,” DeWitt, who also serves as executive director of the organization, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
“This is a very progressive generation. They identify as progressives. They are less likely to identify with a party, of course, but I think that’s a big piece. It is also a very diverse generation. We have over 40 percent people of color,” she continued.
“So you’re seeing a lot of those attacks on immigration policy, on the sort of the hatred and fear-mongering happening that young people just don’t want as part of their country,” she said.
Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization aimed at building voter engagement and participation among young people.
DeWitt’s comments come nearly a week after Democrats took control of the House and Republicans kept their grip on the Senate in the 2018 midterms.
Thirty-one percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted in the contests, which is up 10 percentage points from the 2014 midterm elections, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.
Despite the increase, numbers for presidential contests remain higher, with 51 percent of millennials voting in the 2016 presidential elections.
“I would take a step back and first look at democratic participation regardless of generation and say we have a lot of work left to do in our country period, and even more so in midterms,” DeWitt said when asked why the number was not higher among millennial voters in the midterms.
— Julia Manchester
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