(Elias Irizarry, Headline USA) Recent polling that showed former President Donald Trump leading President Joe Biden among younger voters have spurred some social-media influencers to dump the 81-year-old president for fear of damaging their brand.
During a fundraiser over the weekend in Los Angeles, former President Barack Obama gave voice to the rising panic, which some party officials are beginning to see as a triage situation, with Biden hemorrhaging voters in must-win demographics, Fox News reported.
“Joe Biden: You may not agree with everything he does,” Obama said in acknowledgment of the growing discontent, even among Democrats.
True to form, the former president brought the focus back on himself in what appeared—at best—to be a sort of backhanded compliment in support of his former running mate.
“By the way, you didn’t agree with everything I did,” Obama said, pointedly offering no defense of Biden’s policies.
“And that’s OK,” he continued. “Because in a big, messy, complicated country like this, there are going to be disagreements.”
For Biden, however, those policy disagreements and a chronic disconnect with the overall mood of the country have translated to cratering public approval and an enthusiasm gap that may lead to dangerous levels of voter attrition—despite having received 11,826,604 more votes in 2020 than Obama did in his landslide 2008 win.
According to the Taylor Lorenz, the Washington Post‘s technology and online culture columnist, online stars who helped the Democrat president gain cred in the 2020 race have turned their back due to policy disagreements on issues like the war between Hamas and Israel.
“Biden is out of step with young people on a number of key issues,” said Aidan Kohn–Murphy, 20, the founder of Gen-Z for Change, which has thus far refused to endorse him in his reelection bid.
Kohn–Murphy claimed “the frustrations of young progressive leaders [were] a barometer of widespread dissatisfaction among Gen Z voters.”
However, left-wing activists’ insistence that the Biden administration has not been radical enough for the next generation don’t appear to track with what the data actually indicate.
According a May 13 survey published by the New York Times, Trump polls above Biden by 1% among voters ages 18-29, with the presumptive GOP nominee holding at 31%.
“We were promised all kinds of things by President Biden when he was running for election and what have we gotten?” said Philadelphia Young Republicans chair Matt Lamorgese, 31, in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“People are struggling to buy houses, get a mortgage for the amount they need, they’re not starting families, not saving for retirement and if they compare themselves to their parents, they’re behind,” Lamorgese added.
Trump has shown considerable growth across the board among demographics that tend to vote for Democrats. The Times also showed Trump received 18% support from African Americans and 42% support from Hispanics when asked how they would vote if the election was held today.
The Times isn’t the only group showing Trump with a strong lead among young voters. Quinnipiac University released the results of a poll on June 05 showing a 1% lead for Trump among voters ages 18-34 at 45%.
Recent moves by the Trump campaign have indicated a push to gain youth support, such as Trump speaking out against the TikTok ban recently signed into law by Biden. Trump acknowledged that while the China-based TikTok likely poses a security threat, banning it altogether would only help Facebook, which he called “an enemy of the people.”
In early June, Trump joined the popular video-streaming app, gaining millions followers within only 24 hours of signing up. (By comparison, Biden has failed to gain even a million followers since joining the app in February.)
Since then, Trump has posted two TikTok videos—one at UFC and one with YouTube influencer and boxer Logan Paul.
🚨WOW: Donald Trump just posted his second post on TikTok with Logan Paul 👀 pic.twitter.com/z0JvaYQM0m
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 12, 2024
Trump also participated in a nearly hourlong interview with Paul that touched on rarely discussed topics like UFOs and cage-fighting. As of Tuesday it has been viewed more than 92 million times on X.
Interview a president ✅ https://t.co/h4i2FAqWn7
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) June 13, 2024
It was not the first time Trump has succeeded in reaching out to a younger, more social-media savvy audience.
In 2021, Trump appeared in an interview with the NELK boys, a group of young influencers, in a YouTube segment that received 5 million views in one day before being taken down by YouTube.
Trump’s outreach to non-traditional voters has occasionally perplexed the mainstream media, such as his visit to Philadelphia’s SneakerCon to debut a new line of sneakers. The Associated Press called the move “highly unusual.”
However, it may be these types of untraditional activities such as attending conventions, UFC fights, and going on podcasts that is helping Trump make inroads with historically non-Republican demographics.
In the conclusion of Trumps interview on Paul’s podcast, Impaulsive, the social media influencer extended an invitation to Biden to appear on his podcast.
However, the Democrat incumbent may have his hands full as he courts voters 65 and up, an age group known to turn out much more reliably at the polls (particularly in the new era of absentee ballot-harvesting, which is often conducted at nursing homes).
Trump has reportedly shed about 5% of the senior-citizen vote he received in 2020, according to the Wall Street Journal, and the Biden campaign has pounced, rolling out activities such as “Biden bingo” nights and pickleball games.
