PBS News Hour

10/25/24

7:26:58 p.m. (ET)

Amna Nawaz: Recent polls show Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump by double digits among voters under the age of 30.

But underneath that data lies important signals about the gender divide and the issues that matter to young Americans.

Laura Barron-Lopez has this report from the swing state of North Carolina.

Woman: Vote, baby.

Woman: Let's vote!

Woman: Let's do it.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Fresh off a tour of 30 college campuses, 26-year-old Democrat Anderson Clayton has been working toward this moment.

Anderson Clayton, Chair, North Carolina Democratic Party: This was the first time we ever got in The New York Times.

Laura Barron-Lopez: The nation's youngest state party chair decided on a strategy early.

Anderson Clayton: The misconception is that somebody like me could not do a job like this.

Laura Barron-Lopez: To build a coalition of young voters, like Barack Obama did in 2008.

Barack Obama, Former President of the United States: There are those who are saying that North Carolina would be a game changer.

Laura Barron-Lopez: The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won North Carolina.

Anderson Clayton: We put an emphasis on young voters because that is where I think the party had lacked the emphasis. We know that North Carolina youth vote is going to change this election cycle for us. And that meant that we needed young people to get out there and organize young people.

Laura Barron-Lopez: As for former President Donald Trump's recent inroads with Gen Z men, Clayton pointed to Democrats' edge with women.

Anderson Clayton:

We're doing everything we can to combat that. But I also think that our demographics and where we need to push on doesn't just rely on young men. It relies on getting out and targeting women, marginalized communities, people that our party actually speaks for.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Nationally, polls show a significant gender gap among young voters, ages 18 to 29. That's driven in part by a Harris lead of 30 points or more among young women.

Anderson Clayton: One of these young women is Chantel Chestnutt, who is excited to cast her very first presidential ballot for Harris this year.

Chantel Chestnutt, Harris Supporter: It just feels good, especially her being an HBCU graduate.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Like most of the students we talked to at the historically Black College of North Carolina Central University, one of Chantel's biggest issues is abortion and women's rights.

Chantel Chestnutt There's a lot of things at stake here. And I feel like the outcome of this election will not only shape the next four years, but really shape the next maybe decade, two decades, and a lot of my life. So I feel like this election is very important for me to vote, make my voice heard.

Laura Barron-Lopez: About 40 million Gen Z voters are eligible to vote this year. Those young voters could be the deciding factor here in North Carolina, a state that Donald Trump won by roughly 75,000 votes in 2020.

Emily Stack, Chair, North Carolina Federation of Young Republicans: Right now, I think they care most about the economy. They're coming out of college and they're wondering, hey, where am I going to find a job?

Laura Barron-Lopez: Thirty-year-old Emily Stack, the head of North Carolina's Federation of Young Republicans, is trying to change her party's typical difficulty with reaching younger Americans.

Emily Stack: In general, the Republican Party always needs to be better at just talking to the younger voter, because, a lot of times, as you know, even in politics in general, we have an older population that runs government.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Stack says the state's network of College Republicans will be key to turnout.

Zander Pitrus, President, Duke College Republicans: On campus, free speech is nearly nonexistent.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Zander Pitrus, a junior at Duke, restarted the school's chapter of College Republicans this month, in the hopes of providing an outlet for conservative students.

Zander Pitrus: There will be a growing number once Republicans are less fearful on campus, experience less censorship and even self-censorship on campus, where they're willing to come out of the woodwork.

Laura Barron-Lopez: In a statement to "News Hour," Duke University said: "We believe in fostering a diversity of perspectives on campus, and we supported the group's return to ensure that a wide range of viewpoints is represented at Duke.

At the first ever meeting of this revitalized club, 12 students were in attendance. But at least one wasn't voting for Trump.

Matthew Klinger, Harris Supporter: We have to go beyond talking points.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Twenty-one-year-old Matthew Klinger, a registered Republican, doesn't agree with most of Harris' policies, but is putting that aside to vote for her.

Matthew Klinger: I'm pro-life. I think that a limited government is what's best for the economy and what's best for the people. But I also believe in truth and I believe in empathy. And I do not think that Donald Trump represents those values.

I look at his attack of the Capitol on January 6, his consistent belittling of immigrants and made-up stories about people eating cats and dogs in Ohio, for example. All these things, I do not think represent a man that should be in charge of our country.

Woman: There's no more party of small government.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Also apparent at the gathering, the gender gap, with only one woman student showing up.

Trevor Darr, Trump Supporter: Identity politics has improved culture and society in some ways.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Eighteen-year-old Trevor Darr understands why most women may not vote for Trump. But he says young men don't feel welcome in the Democratic Party.

Trevor Darr: I think the Democratic Party, as of late, has put place a lot of societal vilification the shoulders of young men and saying that we're the source of a lot of social ills in America. And Donald Trump has repudiated that message in a lot of ways.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Trevor's support of Trump is based mainly on foreign policy. But he added that, overall, Trump does more to engage his generation in their social media spaces.

Trevor Darr: I think he knows how to use cultural vehicles to be able to reach my demographic. I think pointing at the Adin Ross podcast is a really good example of how the Trump campaign has been willing to use atypical campaigning measures, using avenues that are dominated by that young male demographic to then reach them.

Man: I know President Trump is a fighter.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Trump's appeal to young men is not subtle, said Richard Reeves.

Richard Reeves, American Institute For Boys and Men: You know, it's UFC, it's podcasts, it's Hulk Hogan tearing off his shirt.

Laura Barron-Lopez: But he added, it's also superficial.

Richard Reeves: There's no policy behind that. There's no substance behind that. But there is a sense of welcome.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Reeves, a scholar on the challenges facing boys and men, said the irony is, Democrats have more concrete proposals benefiting young men, like Medicaid expansion and jobs created by the infrastructure bill.

But they don't sell it as good for men or pro-male.

Richard Reeves: It's a bit more of a head-scratcher as to what's happening with those young men. My view is that it's because the left and the Democrats have just not contested enough. They have ceded too much ground on this issue.

I'm quite convinced that that's part of the problem here, is that young men today don't see an obvious scripted place for themselves in society and in community and in the family in the way that their fathers did. What ends up being the choice for a lot of men is feeling like a left that's turned its back on them and a right that thinks the solution is to turn back the clock on women.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Back at North Carolina Central University, 21-year-old Amari Glover said some of his friends have told him they might back Trump.

Amari Glover, Harris Supporter: I have noticed this, especially because he hangs out with a lot of the rappers that my generation is cool with. So I feel like that's a way for him to influence us, because we will see that and say, oh, Trump is cool, or he gets us, he understands, when, really, I just feel like it's a tactic to get his way inside.

Laura Barron-Lopez: But he was on his way to vote for Harris.

Amari Glover: When I'm thinking about representation, honestly. I feel like Kamala is a great representation of what America should be and what it can be in the next four years.

Anderson Clayton: Even before the world and the country believed it, she believed that North Carolina was a swing state.

Laura Barron-Lopez: For Anderson Clayton, there's no denying that Harris expanded the map for Democrats.

Anderson Clayton: I do think that she has made a world of difference being at the top of the ticket this year. And folks knew that North Carolina was going to be a marginal state, and it's a state where, like, that energy level could be that margin, right? It could push people over the top to get out and vote.

And I think that there is a huge impact and a wave of opportunity here that Joe Biden would not have had, honestly.

Laura Barron-Lopez: If Clayton is right, it would be only the second time since the 1970s that North Carolina has gone blue.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Laura Barron-Lopez in Durham, North Carolina.