the Parkland movement and the 2018 youth vote

According to my colleagues at CIRCLE (based on their own original survey),

  • Almost two-thirds (64%) of youth said they had paid ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ of attention to news about the Parkland shooting.
  • Young people who said they were actively involved with or at least agreed with the post-Parkland movement were 21 percentage points more likely to self-report that they voted in the 2018 midterm elections.
  • Young people who reported being actively involved in the movement were more likely to say they were contacted by a campaign both before October AND and in the last six weeks before the election.
  • Among all 18 to 24-year-olds, 43% percent said that the Parkland shooting influenced their vote choice for Congress and in local elections at least “somewhat,” with 20% saying that it affected their decision “a lot.”

One reason youth involved in anti-gun-violence activism voted at a higher rate may have been their efforts to engage their own peers in voting. Of those who supported the movement, 44% said they had tried to convince others to vote in 2018.

As always, read the whole thing on the CIRCLE site.

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About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.