Millenials say they are heading to the voting booth in the annual Harvard Institute of Politics poll in higher numbers than the 2010 or 2014 midterms, which is good because they frankly couldn't get much worse.
More young voters say they’ll definitely vote in November than have in the last two midterm elections and they increasingly would rather have Democrats than Republicans in control of Congress, a poll released Tuesday by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics shows.
The survey of adults ages 18 to 29 also reveals younger Americans have greater trust in Amazon and Google than Facebook and Twitter. Those findings come as Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is set to testify at the Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday to answer questions about data privacy, fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech.
More than a third of young Americans eligible to cast ballots in November -- 37 percent -- say they’ll “definitely be voting” in the elections seven months from now that will decide control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. That’s higher than the poll recorded at about the same point in 2010 and 2014, the two most recent midterm elections, when 31 percent and 23 percent answered that way.
“This generation of young Americans is as engaged as we have ever seen them in a midterm election cycle," said John Della Volpe, the institute’s polling director.
The good news: it's Democrats who are energized.
Young, self-identified Democrats are driving almost all of the increased enthusiasm, the survey found, with 51 percent saying they’ll “definitely” vote. That’s a 9 percentage point increase since November 2017 and is significantly larger than the 36 percent of Republicans who say the same.
At this point in the 2014 election, midway through Obama’s second term, 28 percent of Democrats and 31 percent of Republicans indicated that they would “definitely” be voting, while 35 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of Republicans held a similar interest in voting in the spring of 2010. In that election, Republicans took control of the House from the Democrats.
Millenials didn't show up at all in 2014 and it was brutal for the Dems. The numbers are much, much better this time around, and I'm hoping it will pay off in a big way.
If 51% of Millenial Dems really do show up in November, the Republicans are screwed. I'm holding out hope here that Trump has turned a lot of people younger than myself into voters that show up.
But one thing I do know come January: Paul Ryan won't be Speaker of the House, because he's bugging out, if Politico 2.0 is to be believed.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has told confidants that he will announce soon that he won't run for reelection in November, according to sources with knowledge of the conversations.
Why it matters: House Republicans were already in a very tough spot for the midterms, with many endangered members and the good chance that Democrats could win the majority.
One of Washington’s best-wired Republicans said:
“This is a Titanic, tectonic shift. … This is going to make every Republican donor believe the House can’t be held.” The announcement will help Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in his fundraising because “the Senate becomes the last bastion," the Republican said.
If this is a trial balloon, Ryan does have time to work with. Wisconsin's primaries are among the latest in the country (August 14th) and the candidate filing date is June 1st. But as Axios's source says, if the most prolific fundraiser in the House GOP is hanging it up, then the money people absolutely are going to shift resources to the Senate.
Ryan was the most feckless Speaker in modern history, hands down. And he'll be remembered most for enabling Trump, and then cutting and running in two years like a punk. He won't go down as the worst however, compared to Newt Gingrich's fall from grace, Tom DeLay who went down on money laundering and conspiracy charges (later overturned by a Texas court) and oh yeah, convicted pedophile Denny Hastert. Hey, at least Ryan made John Boehner look competent by comparison, right?
Maybe we should stop having Republicans in charge of the House? Just saying.
Of course there's there theory that Ryan had a comfortable lead and bailed on not only the House Speaker's gavel but the House GOP as well, and that's because he knows something massive is coming. After all, the best way to prevent any impeachment proceedings is to remain as Speaker and prevent anything from coming to a vote. He's only 48, the guy had years ahead of him in the House.
He's looking for the exits though.
There's more to this story.
Stay frosty.
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