Young Voter Turnout In 2022 Midterms Delivered Key Democrat Wins

Young voters turned out in a major way.

By Rachel Janfaza, Teen Vogue

As projections from the 2022 midterms continue to trickle in, it’s abundantly clear that Democrats should be thanking the young voters who helped deliver decisive wins on the left, preventing a red wave in Republicans’ favor.

An initial look at youth voting patterns shared by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts (CIRCLE) shows that young Americans ages 18-29 overwhelmingly backed Democrats for the U.S. House of Representatives. CIRCLE’s analysis of the Edison Research National Election Pool exit poll found that 63% of young Americans voted for a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House, while 35% of young Americans backed Republican candidates.

With the threat of a national abortion ban on the horizon to far-right candidates promoting climate change denial and threatening to reject election results, according to organizers, there was an overwhelming understanding this cycle of “the stakes of the moment,” said Sunrise Movement’s 25-year-old national spokesperson Ellen Sciales. A mixture of fear and hope, Sciales said, allowed young people to buck speculation that without former president Donald Trump officially on the ballot, they wouldn’t show up.

“It’s never been just about Trump for us. It’s about stopping the climate crisis, protecting our reproductive freedoms, and ending gun violence in our classrooms,” said Sciales, who spent the past 10 days organizing young voters in Wisconsin.