The power of the young voter

By Lauren Whitby
March 26, 2024

On Monday, David Axelrod continued his “Democracy at Work” series at Arizona State University with fellow high-profile political strategists David Plouffe and Karl Rove.

The three discussed the upcoming presidential election, including current polling trends, the economy and international relations, among other topics. Throughout the event, they addressed the role of young voters in determining the election’s outcome. They also answered questions from ASU students in the audience.

Axelrod is a political commentator and the former chief strategist and senior advisor to President Barack Obama. Plouffe was Obama's campaign manager for the 2008 election and later succeeded Axelrod in the role of senior advisor. Rove served as senior strategist, senior advisor and then deputy chief of staff for President George W. Bush. All three are The New York Times bestselling authors.

“I think the most important demographic in this election, and there are many, but the most important one is young voters,” said Plouffe. 

Rove agreed, and noted that African Americans, Latinos and what he referred to as the “double haters,” voters who dislike both Biden and Trump, will also carry a lot of weight, whether they choose to vote for a third-party candidate or don’t vote at all.

“Turn out is going to matter,” said Rove. “I would not be surprised at all if we see a significant decline in the percentage of the voting age population that turns out this fall.”

Plouffe and Rove discussed that these groups will be critical in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina, and that each campaign’s use of new technologies will sway votes for these audiences.

The use of campaign promotion on social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Discord will be critical for young voters.

“I still love the long written word. That is fairly useless in today’s political world,” said Plouffe. “It’s quick visuals, it’s memes, it’s clever language. So I think that’s the challenge and opportunity.” 

Specifically, organic content and influencer marketing are advertising streams that can’t be ignored.

“I think a lot of this can happen organically,” said Plouffe. “People can sniff out propaganda,” he continued, but if somebody posts something that an individual finds insightful or interesting, they might share it, and that can go a long way for driving authentic, organic traffic.

Niranjana Sreeprasad, a political science major and first-year student, asked the panelists how Biden and Trump’s international relations have influenced voters.

They noted that younger voters do present a challenge for the Biden administration in regard to current conflicts in the Middle East. 

“It’s a real challenge for the White House to navigate,” said Plouffe.

Additionally, there is the conflict in Ukraine. “What is the largest ethnic group in the state of Wisconsin?” asked Rove. “Polish, who are strongly pro Ukraine.”

John Campbell, a political science major and first-year student, asked if the panelists saw American democracy as under threat.

“All of us are on this stage because we believe so deeply in this system of our democracy,” said Axelrod.

“Our country is strong. We’ve been through a lot of bad times,” said Rove. “I’m fundamentally optimistic about the United States.”

“Our parties are broken, but they’ve been broken before,” he said. “It always happens that America and Americans stand up and say we deserve better.”

Tarun Masapeta, a graduate student studying global management, asked about how we can get back to constructive, bipartisan conversations in the current age of social media. 

“The business model of social media is to keep people online,” said Axelrod. “The great inspiration of these algorithms is that anger, resentment, outrage, conspiracy — and we have shoved into those silos, and the information we get is filtered according to our preferences.”

“We have to be much more transparent about what’s happening,” he said. “One of the reasons I wanted these guys together is that it’s important to say we can have real differences and still have a conversation.”