President Joe Biden still holds a significant advantage over Donald Trump among young voters, but the gap has been closing over the past year, a new edition of the Harvard Youth Poll showed.
The university's study, conducted among 2,010 people between the ages of 18 and 29, has the incumbent with a 56% to 37% lead among registered young voters. The figure was 60% to 30% four years ago.
Answers, however, varied significantly based on gender, age and education levels, among other subgroups.
Some tidbits highlighted by the poll: Biden's lead among young men is 6%, the figure climbing to 33% among women. The younger subgroup (ages 18-24) is less likely to support Biden than the older one (25-29). He leads by 14 points with the former and by 26 with the latter.
Despite Biden losing support with non-white voters, the demographic's younger cohort still vastly stands behind him: his lead is 43 points, compared to only 3 among white voters.
As for education levels: Biden's lead among college students is 23 points, climbing to 47 among graduates. In contrast, the race is even among those not in college and without a four-year degree.
A conviction for Trump would increase Biden's standing, however. Should he be found guilty, the current president's lead among all young Americans climbs from 8 to 18 points. With registered voters it goes from 13 to 21 points and among likely voters it goes from 19 to 28 points.
One area in which Trump does have a lead is enthusiasm: 76% of his supporters said they do so enthusiastically, the figure being 44% for the incumbent.
Looking at specific issues that will play a relevant role at the time of going to the polls, immigration stands out: a majority of young Americans (53%) said there is an immigration crisis at the Southern border. Only 16% disagreed with the notion. Regardless of this, more respondents opposed to the construction of a border wall (45%) than those who supported it (36%).
Moreover, many more respondents believe that "immigrants improve the culture of the United States" and disagree with the affirmation that immigrants "increase crime in my community" and "are taking jobs that should go to Americans instead."
"Only 12% of young Americans say they would be uncomfortable if an immigrant moved
next door to them. A solid majority (60%) of young Americans have had classmates who
have been immigrants, 46% have friends who are immigrants, 41% have had immigrant
coworkers, and 40% have had immigrant neighbors. Young Americans who have
firsthand experience with immigrants have more favorable views about their impact on
society," the survey added.
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