The 2020 Democratic presidential primaries have once again shown that young people influence elections. More than half of states have now voted in the 2020 Democratic primaries, and the field has narrowed to two candidates: former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden holds a substantial delegate lead and is now the presumptive nominee, even though Sanders, as he did during his 2016 candidacy for the Democratic nomination, has once again dominated among young voters in 2020. While Sanders won the youth vote in all but one of the states that have voted so far, when we dig deeper, we find that youth support has not been uniform for Sanders. In particular, young people of different races/ethnicities have played a critical and distinct role in the primaries. CONT.
Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement