U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Brendan Mcdermid | Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
Younger Americans do not appear to hold Vice President Kamala Harris responsible for what many of them believe is a worsening U.S. economy under the Biden-Harris administration, according to a new survey from CNBC and Generation Lab.
The latest quarterly Youth & Money Survey, taken after Biden dropped out of the race in July, reveals that 69% of Americans between 18 and 34 years old believe the economy is getting worse under President Joe Biden.
But they also think the candidate best able to improve the economy is the de facto Democratic nominee Harris, not Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump.
Harris was viewed as the best candidate for the economy by 41% of poll respondents, while 40% chose Trump, while 19% said the economy would do better under someone else, like third party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The results amount to a seven-point swing in Democrats’ favor on the economy since CNBC asked the same question in May’s Youth & Money Survey. At that time, only 34% of respondents believed Biden, then the likely Democratic nominee, was the best candidate to boost the economy, with 40% choosing Trump and 25% saying Kennedy.
The shift in voting support for Harris is even wider among respondents overall. If the presidential election were held today, the latest poll found Harris holding a 12-point lead over Trump among younger Americans, 46% to 34%, while 21% said they would vote for either Kennedy or another candidate.
Three months ago, the same survey found Trump and Biden effectively tied, with 36% for Biden and 35% for Trump, and 29% planning to vote for Kennedy.
This jump in support for Harris today is all the more notable because of how significant the economy is to the voting choices of younger Americans.
According to the new CNBC survey data, the “economy and cost of living” was cited more than any other issue when respondents were asked what will impact their decisions about who to vote for, with 66% of respondents naming it among their top three. Running second with 34% was “access to abortion and reproductive rights,” followed by “gun violence/control” at 26%.
Nonetheless, these results also contain warning signs for Harris and the Democratic Party.
To win the White House, Harris will likely need to do even better among young people in November than her current 12-point lead in the CNBC and Generation Lab’s survey.
‘Bidenomics’ may not be a drag on Harris
With fewer than 90 days to go before Election Day on Nov. 5, these new results could have significant implications for a presidential contest that was altered by Biden’s decision to drop out.
As pollsters race to gather data on how Harris’ candidacy is — or is not — changing the race, one of the biggest unanswered questions for both parties is whether Americans will transfer their well-documented frustration with Biden, after years of high inflation and high interest rates, directly over to Harris.
These findings suggest that the political drag of “Bidenomics” has so far not rubbed off on Harris — at least not among younger people.
In 2020 for example, Biden won voters age 18 to 29 by a margin of 24 percentage points, with 59% of the vote to Trump’s 35%.
And while young people have long made up a crucial constituency for Democratic candidates, this year, depending upon which states Kennedy appears on the ballot, the embattled anti-vaccine independent might still be able to peel away enough votes from Harris to cut into her overall margins.
Turnout is also a potential trouble spot for Democrats. The 18- to 34-year-old cohort makes up roughly a quarter of the total U.S. population, or around 76 million people, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. During the last presidential election in 2020, 57% of this age group turned out to vote.
In this survey, 77% of respondents said they either definitely or probably will vote. But in past elections, the number of people who say they plan to vote is typically much higher than those who actually do.
Economy is still a wild card
Lastly, as is always the case in an election, the economy itself could either hurt or help Harris, depending upon where it goes.
For example, this poll was taken between July 22 and July 29, before the latest jobs report showed a contraction, spurring new fears of an economic recession.
It was also taken before the market sell-off on Aug. 5, which was triggered in part by fears stemming from the rocky jobs report.
Meanwhile, most polls that sample all adults, and not just younger people, still show Trump holding on to his advantage when it comes to which candidate voters trust more to improve the economy.
Any more bad economic news between now and November could see voters blame Harris — who has yet to fully articulate an economic agenda distinct from Biden’s — and pivot back to the perceived safety of Trump’s familiar economic agenda.
The survey interviewed 1,043 adults between the ages of 18 and 34, with a margin of error of 3.0%.
