Consider This from NPR - Young voters in GA. will have a huge stake in the election. What do they want?

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Consider This host Mary Louise Kelly wanted to find out what young voters in Georgia are most concerned with ahead of the presidential election this year.So, she traveled across the state to speak with young people from both sides of the aisle to hear their priorities, hopes, and skepticisms.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm in Atlanta specifically and believe me when I tell you I have waited years to say this specifically I am reporting from Tacos and Tequilas. This is a Mexican joint in Buckhead, northwest Atlanta and we're here because the Atlanta Young Republicans have gathered to eat chips and salsa and to handwrite postcards. Anybody need a drink? Yeah, margarita's hell. It makes it fun. And this is an environment where people can come and connect with like-minded people. That is Winslow Jones, 39 years old, president of Atlanta Young Republicans. And this is the first of three stops we're about to take you on.

Consider this. We're six weeks out from Election Day. How is the youth vote shaping up in Georgia? From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Consider This from NPR. Here in Atlanta, Georgia, young Republicans are hoping to get more than a thousand postcards written and addressed, urging voters to support two down-ballot GOP candidates. As for the top of the ticket, Winslow Jones, president of Atlanta Young Republicans, told me some of her members love Donald Trump. Others have issues with him. I think across the board, there can be mixed feelings about Trump. Others have issues with him. I think across the board there can be mixed feelings about Trump, but I think what we're all united on is like this is a much bigger picture here that we need to look at. And I can tell you young Republicans are worried about the economy

and the border and crime and safety, local crime and safety, especially around here. Across the table, the president of the statewide group, Georgia Young Republicans, is here too. Jacqueline Harn is 25. I asked whether she and her peers are feeling excited about this third Trump run for the presidency. Short answer, yes. We're excited for a change, and we realize we want the life that we had four years ago, whenever President Trump was president, and his policies, his conservative policies. We need those back and we want those back to be able to achieve our version of the American dream again. For example, Harn says she can't afford to buy a house because she is quote paying rent out the wazoo every month. Harn doesn't see that changing if Kamala Harris wins.

She's saying day one she's going to fix the housing crisis and the pricing and inflation. She's had three and a half years to do that. So no one's buying it. Is it hard, though, I asked Harn, to get young voters fired up to vote Republican when the Democratic candidate is relatively young and winning endorsements from big pop stars like Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift's a billionaire who doesn't have to worry about how much groceries cost. You can't tell me she relates to the average person around this table tonight. She can't. And so if the best they can do is a celebrity endorsement that is not relatable at all,

I don't see what they're doing. All righty, we are rolling up to our next stop. This is going to be at the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign headquarters. Pizza boxes are stacked on white folding tables. A handful of what look like 20-somethings are busy typing away on laptops. At the front of the room, a screen displays dozens more joining via Zoom. We have some of our GOTV staff. We have volunteers. This is a joint event co-hosted by young Democrats of Georgia and men for choice.

Today's task, text banking. We just sent out each 1,000 texts. Altogether, they tell me they have fired off 50,000 texts from this gathering. They are aiming them at a very specific group, men of color 27 to 50 years old. The backbone of the Democratic Party is the black vote, which is why Republicans are focused on black men specifically. And we know when we show up how elections seem to kind of flip. And right now, it's not 100 percent guaranteed that we're going to get all of the Black vote. That's Devante Jennings, age 28, president of the Young Democrats. He says he

is equal parts energized and exhausted at this point in the election cycle. He says the game changer was when President Biden decided to exit the race. When VP Harris announced that she was running, I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. Things just got crazy out of nowhere. Like more people involved, more support, more work, more canvassing, more tax bankings. But it's good. It's good. Like a switch flipped in terms of the energy level. Oh, yeah. This field office, Harris Walls HQ, is in Fulton County,

which, like much of metro Atlanta, leans blue. Back in 2020, nine counties clustered around Atlanta went for Biden. And young people turning out at the polls had something to do with that, according to political science professor Kerwin Swent. Since the Obama years, the youth vote really has sided with the Democratic presidential candidate more often than not. 2020, the turnout was up across the board, partly because of mail-in balloting making it easier for people to vote. So participation was up, and that was very much true for young voters who had the highest participation rate in about 20 years. Swent teaches at our final stop, Kennesaw State University. It was National Voter Registration

Day when we stopped by campus this week, and the nonpartisan group Podera Latinx had a tent out, handing out pens and stickers and snacks, waving students over, encouraging them to register. Nice to meet you. Are you up to date with your voter registration? No, actually, oh, that's our national voter registration. It seemed to be working. The group managed to register 81 voters. And as we listened, we got a taste of what is on Gen Z voters' minds this election. Immigration, education, the economy, and I think, like, housing too.

That's Yahir Rodriguez. He's a first-year student at Kennesaw State and a first-generation voter whose parents immigrated from Mexico. He belongs to a growing demographic in the state. Almost 10% of Georgia's population is Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2020 census. Rodriguez says housing is an especially important issue for him and other young voters. We see that rent prices are going up and like how housing is getting expensive everywhere. We're seeing that there are more and more corporate landlords and that's raising the housing prices for like everyone around us. And even if you want to buy a home, that's also raising the prices and everything. He says he's excited to vote for Kamala Harris this November.

Other young voters we met on campus were less enthusiastic, like 19-year-old Ambience Jackson. Honestly, they both have bad policies. Jackson says she will be voting for Harris this November, that the overturning of Roe v. Wade makes that an easy choice for a young woman of color like herself. But she adds there's room for improvement if Harris wants to win over other young voters. Kamala, she doesn't really explain her policies well. Like, she mainly talks about tax cuts for middle class, but like, she doesn't really have policies. And then Jackson says something we have heard from a few people in this battleground state, that November 5th

cannot come fast enough. I'm ready for it to be over. That's what I'm ready for. I'm ready for the results to come out. So, you know, we can just proceed from there, whatever happens. And Beyonce Jackson, one of the young voters we have been chatting with here in Georgia, who will be helping determine how Georgia's crucial electoral votes swing come November. This episode was produced by Erica Ryan, Kira Joaquim, and Alejandra Marquez-Hanse. It was edited by Courtney Dourning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yinnigan. Thank you. You can sign up at npr.org slash consider this newsletter. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.