Youth vote in Texas, elsewhere expanding in significant numbers, data suggests to Biden's advantage

In battleground states across the nation, the youth vote is turning out in numbers significantly larger than any recent election, according to an analysis run by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. In particular, young voters in Texas are showing up in huge numbers. 

As of Friday, 753,600 early votes had been cast in the 2020 election in the Lone Star state by voters younger than 30. That figure in 2016 was only 106,000. Today's number represents a 610% increase in voters under 30 casting an early ballot.

The survey numbers are not broken down into party affiliation.

According to the Texas Tribune, less than one-third of voters in the 2016 election were younger than 40, despite millennials consistently being some of the loudest political voices out there.

Those numbers, however, have begun to shift. In 2018, turnout among voters under 30 more than tripled in Texas, as compared to the 2014 midterm election. 

Texans have overall been busy voting early.

More than 7.8 million have already cast ballots for this presidential election. The number indicates the state has already hit nearly 90% of all votes cast in the state in 2016, according to the U.S. Election Project.

California is just behind with 7.4 million votes cast thus far. 

In Texas, a generally red-state that has expanded its Democratic voting base in recent years, it is unclear who the beneficiary of the early voters and the youth voters will be. However, among young voters, the advantage tends to go to Democratic politicians.

According to a Harvard University poll released Monday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads Republican President Trump 63% to 25% among young voters.

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that in 2016, only 43% of 18-24 year-olds voted, compared to 61% of eligible citizens overall.

Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, the director of CIRCLE, which is run out of Tufts University, says that a significant youth vote almost always swings in favor of Democratic candidates. 

“Young people could either not show up and decide a toss-up race in favor of almost always a Republican candidate. Or they could show up in large numbers and help a Democrat win,” said Kawashima-Ginsberg.

Across the country, early voting and early ballot requests among youth voters (and all voters) is up, which Kawashima-Ginsberg thinks could provide a critical edge to Biden.

However, with the election just days away, pollsters are finding themselves a little uncertain of how the election will progress, due not only to the upset that was the result of the 2016 election, but primarily because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has altered the ways in which Americans are voting in significant enough patterns to disrupt most prediction models.