American’s youngest voters are overwhelmingly backing Hillary Clinton for president, as a majority also express fears about the country’s future, a nationwide survey released Wednesday by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics shows.
The Democratic nominee is backed by 49 per cent of likely voters ages 18 to 29, followed by Republican nominee Donald Trump at 21 per cent, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson at 14 per cent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 5 per cent. In a hypothetical two-way contest between Clinton and Trump, the Democrat received 59 per cent support and the Republican was backed by 25 per cent.
Clinton is also tracking ahead of President Barack Obama’s 2012 polling numbers among women and whites in the age group, the survey found.
“After eight years of a complicated relationship with millennials, in the closing days of the campaign, Hillary Clinton is closing strong,” said John Della Volpe, the institute’s polling director.
“Her favorability with 18- to 29-year-old likely voters is up significantly since the summer and the combination of her strong debate performances, and failure for both Trump and the third party candidates to expand their bases gives her a lead of 28 points.”
In 2012, those 18 to 29 years old accounted for 19 per cent of the electorate nationally, according to exit polls.
Harvard’s survey of 2,150 US citizens was conducted online through random sampling from October 7-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. (Bloomberg)
