ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Throughout this campaign season, both Democrats and Republicans heavily courted younger voters. It's a group that typically leans Democratic, but a shift in their support by just a few points either way can decide an election. And in this presidential race, Vice President Harris seemed to underperform. NPR's Elena Moore has been looking into the data. Hi, Elena.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What do you know about how young people voted this year?
MOORE: Well, Harris received 54% of voters under 30 according to early exit polls. But since 2008, winning Democratic candidates have gotten at least 60% of the youth votes. So simply put, Harris just didn't meet that threshold. It was especially pronounced in some key swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania where her numbers were just much lower than President Biden's. And in Michigan, especially, President-elect Trump actually won among this group, which is just a huge shift. It's all just a major win for Trump, given his goal was to cut down Democrats' margin.
SHAPIRO: Yeah, those are really striking numbers.
MOORE: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: Why do you think Trump might have gained ground with younger voters?
MOORE: Well, for young voters, the economy was the No. 1 issue, according to AP VoteCast data, and Trump kept that message very simple. He's always done that. And for young people concerned about their finances, it stuck, it seems like. On top of that, Trump spent a lot of his time reaching out to younger voters online, on social media, through these long podcast interviews, you know, that have particularly high popularity among young men. And I spoke to Charlie Kirk about this. He's a young conservative leader who runs Turning Point USA, and here's how he describes Trump's youth appeal.
CHARLIE KIRK: They want a nice life, and they feel it slipping away. They feel as if insanity is creeping into their institutions, and it's more, dare I say, a vibe than anything else. And, you know, for an entire campaign that was built on vibes, they certainly didn't read the room.
MOORE: And, of course, by the they there, he's referring to Democrats who had good vibes when Harris replaced Biden on the ticket. But it's important to note she was a relatively new candidate with not a lot of time to make her pitch to these voters. And she focused a lot on abortion rights, and that is important to young voters, with folks - you know, but with folks whose top issue was the economy, they were more likely to side with Trump.
SHAPIRO: As you've reported, young voters are obviously not a monolith. So when you...
MOORE: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: ...Dig into these results, what kinds of divisions and differences do you find?
MOORE: Well, we've talked about it a little. Young men - they broke away from the Democrats and actually favored Trump. I talked to John Della Volpe. He's a youth polling expert at Harvard. He says many young men seem to not feel they have a place in the modern Democratic Party.
JOHN DELLA VOLPE: They're telling us in our surveys and our focus groups that the Democratic Party doesn't speak to them. This is something that you can't turn around in 30 days or 100 days. To do this takes years of investment.
MOORE: He went on to say that Trump did make that investment, and it's part of the reason Democrats lost ground. And I should also say that young women handily sided with Harris, but compared to four years ago, there was still a drop there, too.
SHAPIRO: It's really striking. NPR's Elena Moore, thanks for your reporting.
MOORE: Thanks, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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