How to Reach Swing Gen Z Voters

The messenger is more important than the message.

Jun 18, 2024

Pro-Biden personal testimonies are critical to moving Gen Z swing voters to Biden voters.
Focusing on the cost of living, healthcare, and housing is critical.
Gaza/Israel and Reproductive Rights don’t resonate as much as we think.

There has been much talk about young voters, and for good reason. In 2024, the Gen Z and Millennial vote will make up over 40% of the total vote.

This age group has been a reliable voting bloc for Democrats in the past. In 2022, voters aged 18 to 29 preferred Democrats over Republicans by a 28-point margin, and in 2020, Biden won the youth vote by 24%.

The youth vote also has a big influence in key swing states such as Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

Current polling shows that the Biden campaign has some ground to gain with young voters to ensure similar support in this election cycle.

Current Gen Z Polling

A recent Harvard Youth Poll has Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by 8% among young registered voters (that number increases to 19 points when filtering for “likely voters”), well under his previous 24-point advantage from 2020.

To make matters even more concerning, when the field is expanded to include third parties, Biden’s lead over Trump shrinks to 3% among registered young voters.

Our Research

Engaging with young swing voters will be essential in this election, but how do we do that? What issues move the needle? What kind of content best connects with young people? And who are the best messengers?

We conducted a focus group with Lake Research Partners to answer some of these questions. Our focus group consisted of 50 registered swing voters between the ages of 18 and 27. According to the recent SocialSphere Snapchat poll, this represents about 25% of the youth vote. The following takeaways combine what we’ve learned from our focus group with other polling and data that has been made public.

Main Takeaways:

“Disappointed and disgusted that in the 4 years since the last election, our country couldn’t give us 2 better candidates. I feel doomed and defeated that that is the best that the country has to offer.” - Focus group participant, College Woman in the West

Young swing voters are not happy with their choices. They have very negative feelings towards both Biden and Trump.
Young swing voters are very focused on the economy, specifically the cost of living, healthcare, and housing. These issues resonated significantly more than Gaza/Israel and reproductive rights.
There is a huge lack of awareness regarding what Biden has accomplished during his presidency.
Young swing voters overwhelmingly get their news from TikTok, X, and YouTube. This makes them more aware of current news stories as they happen, so tying your messaging to current events is a good way to break through.

Key Recommendations:

Talk about the economy: When reaching out to young swing voters, the cost of living, healthcare, and housing should be front and center. A general message highlighting how Biden’s economic policies are aimed at helping average working-class Americans contrasted with Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and billionaire-centric economic policies, will be effective.
- The Center For Popular Democracy recently published a poll on housing aimed at voters in swing states. It found that 73% of voters 18-35 would be much more, or somewhat more, likely to vote for a candidate who talked about affordable housing policies such as rent stabilization and increased government funding.
Make policy about people, not the politicians: For understandable reasons, we tend to focus on policies passed by a politician before focusing on the positive impact those policies will have on people’s lives. With young swing voters leading with the personal impact a policy will have, or has had, is essential before highlighting who is responsible for it.
The messenger is more important than the message: Cynicism is high with this voting bloc. Messages that come directly from the Biden campaign or official DNC accounts may not break through, and if they do, they are met with suspicion. It is critical that we focus on peer-to-peer messaging. Using young people as messengers is the best way to reach young swing voters. Our friends at Republican Voters Against Trump are a great example of peer-to-peer messaging. This type of content puts the right messenger front and center, creating permission to vote for Biden.

Implementing our recommendations: Peer-to-Peer Communication

To learn the best way to communicate with this voting bloc, we tested three different styles of videos centered on the same issue: Student Debt Reform.

Video 1 was a pro-Biden message. Video 2 was a video that contrasted Biden’s stance with Trump’s. Video 3 was a testimonial from someone who had their student debt forgiven.

Unsurprisingly, video 3 was by far the favorite and video 1 was by far the least favorite.

“It feels more organic, it appears to be produced by an unbiased regular person as opposed to a political campaign.” - Non-College Man in the West
“I liked that the policy actually impacted someone’s life and made it better, because sometimes policies sound good but don’t actually do anything.” - College Woman in the South

Hearing testimonials directly from people impacted by policy checks all the boxes. This peer-to-peer communication builds trust, shows impact, and comes from trusted messengers.

How to talk about Biden’s record? Contrast Content.

By now, you’ve probably noticed quite the conundrum. We need to inform young swing voters about Biden’s accomplishments without directly talking about Biden’s accomplishments.

This is where contrast content comes in.

College-educated members of our focus group slightly preferred the contrast content over the testimonial. However, it is important to caveat that this was a small sample size. Yet, young swing voters appear to be more open to hearing about Biden’s accomplishments when contrasted with Trump’s record.

The contrast between these two candidates couldn’t be any bigger.

Want to learn more about our research?

Call To Action: Add Your Voice!

Here’s the deal: The biggest voting coalition in America is the anti-Trump coalition. They represent a majority of voters in the country and the swing states. The problem is that a section of this coalition, including many young swing voters, have not yet committed to voting for Joe Biden. What this section of the anti-Trump coalition does in November will probably decide this election.

So, how do we get them to vote for Biden? We talk about why we are voting for Biden.

This is true for all voters in the anti-Trump coalition but is particularly important for Gen Z swing voters.

Similar to anti-Trump Republicans, Gen Z swing voters need “permission” to vote for Joe Biden. The vibes surrounding him are just off. Politics have never been more tied to identity and community. If you are living on a college campus or surrounded by other young people who share similar misgivings about the president, it becomes harder to get there on Biden.

Personal testimonials are highly effective at countering that. Young people hearing from young people about why they are voting for Joe Biden can be very powerful. It starts to create a permission structure for voting for Joe Biden.

This is my way of saying YOUR VOICE IS CRITICAL IN THIS ELECTION. YOU are the trusted messenger. By sharing content on your social feeds, texting your friends, or having in-person conversations about the reason YOU are voting for Joe Biden you can make a huge difference. This doesn’t need to be a debate or a dissertation. Just speak honestly and authentically about why you believe Joe Biden deserves another term.

If you are inspired by this and ready to record your message, I have an easy way for you to do that. Click on this link, which will take you to a service where you can record a message.

We will distribute these messages throughout our network and provide you with the file. Of course, you can always use your phone, and if you do, we would love it if you shared your video with us.