Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Most Young Adults Not|Taken With GOP, Dems

(CN) - Most young Americans say neither the Republican or Democratic parties represent them, according to a new GenForward poll.

Just 28 percent of young adults, including 31 percent of African-Americans and Hispanics and 26 percent of whites and Asian-Americans, say the two parties do a good job of representing the American people, the poll found.

If there's a silver lining in the statistics, it shimmers for the Democrats because two-thirds of young adults polled said the GOP doesn't not care about them.

GenForward is a survey by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago done in cooperation with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

One intention of the poll is highlight how race and ethnicity shape the opinions of adults aged 18 to 30, and the findings weren't pretty for either party.

For instance, three-quarters of survey participants said they don't believe Republican Donald Trump is qualified to be president. But at the same time, 50 percent say they don't believe Democrat Hillary Clinton is either.

Much of Clinton's support on this question came from black, Hispanic and Asian-American survey participants. Most young whites said they think she is unqualified to by the next occupant of the White House.

A total 43 percent say Clinton intentionally broke the law in her use of a private email address on a personal server while she was secretary of state, and another 20 percent think she did so unintentionally.

As for the rest, 27 percent think she showed poor judgment but did not break the law, and 8 percent say she did nothing wrong at all.

More than half of young whites — 54 percent — think Clinton intentionally committed a crime, and another 17 percent think she did so unintentionally.

Young African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Hispanics view Clinton's actions in a more sympathetic light, though few clear her of all wrongdoing.

Just 32 percent of Hispanics, 29 percent of Asian-Americans and 21 percent of African-Americans think Clinton intentionally broke the law, with most of the remainder saying she either did so unintentionally or showed poor judgment that did not amount to lawbreaking.

But of they're not happy with their options, young people across racial and ethnic groups admitted they are mostly unfamiliar with their alternatives.

Seven in 10 say they don't know enough about Libertarian Gary Johnson to have an opinion about him, and nearly 8 in 10 say the same about Jill Stein of the Green Party.

The poll of 1,940 adults age 18-30 was conducted July 9-20 using a sample drawn from the probability-based GenForward panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. young adult population. Respondents were selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later interviewed either online or by phone.

The margin of error for all respondents is 3.8 percent. The survey was paid for by the Black Youth Project at the University of Virginia, through grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...