Midterm elections: How young voters saved the Democrats in 2022

CNN
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Democrats have done a lot better in the midterm elections than a lot of pundits and analysts had anticipated. They’re favored to hold on to the Senate and look to have kept their losses in the House to a minimum.

In doing so, Democrats have defied historical precedent, which suggests the president’s party loses significant ground in midterm elections.

President Joe Biden credited, in part, “historic” turnout by younger Americans for the strong Democratic performance.

A look at the data suggests there probably wasn’t a surge of youth participation relative to the rest of the electorate. But it does suggest that Democrats defied election expectations this year because of a historically large age gap that saw young voters overwhelmingly back Democratic candidates.

The lack of a youth surge becomes quickly apparent when you look at the exit polls. Voters under the age of 30 made up 12% of all voters. In every midterm in the last 20 years, this group has made up between 11% and 13% of the electorate.

(Other data, too, shows that younger voters did not make up a significantly larger portion of the electorate compared with prior midterms.)

Now, overall turnout is likely to be higher this year compared with most past midterms. It could therefore be argued that young voters did turn out in larger numbers than they have historically, but that is true of every age group.

Interactive: Anatomy of a close election: How Americans voted in 2022 vs. 2018

While they may not have made up a larger share of the electorate than normal, young voters still made their presence felt.

Democrats would have gotten crushed without young voter support. Democratic House candidates won voters under the age of 45 by 13 points, while losing voters age 45 and older by 10 points.

Breaking it down further, House Democratic candidates won voters under 30 by 28 points – that’s an increase from their 26-point edge with this group two years ago.

This is significantly different from other age groups, the exit polls show. Democrats lost every age slice of the electorate 45 years and older by at least 7 points, including a 12-point loss among senior citizens (age 65 and older).

What is perhaps especially interesting is that voters under 30…