By Matthew J. Mayhew, Christa Winkler, Kevin Singer, Musbah Shaheen - The Conversation
College students are a rapidly growing voting bloc and increasingly coveted by candidates.
Twice as many college students voted in the 2018 legislative elections as in 2014, challenging the stereotype that young people are not politically engaged.
According to the Knight Foundation, 71% are expected to vote this year.
Both the President, Donald Trump, and the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden,
are courting them in different ways
.
Trump and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, are trying to win the support of students with new guarantees of religious freedom and free speech.
Biden, for his part, promises to push for a free college and forgive $ 10,000 in student loans for all borrowers if elected.
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There are more than 14 million college students in the United States, which has about 235 million eligible voters.
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Almost all of the students were born after 1996, which means they belong to Generation Z. This generation of voters is 45% non-white, according to the Pew Research Center.
And more than half of Gen Z college students are the first in their families to go to college
.
As with any large and diverse group, some students are more likely to vote than others.
So which youth are really at stake?
Who votes, who doesn't
Our study, the Interreligious Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey, or IDEALS, helps answer that question.
We conducted this four-year study of 5,762 students enrolled in one of 120 colleges and universities between the fall of 2015 and the spring of 2019. Our goal was to examine the religious and political behavior of students over time.
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We asked the participants 70 questions about the 2016 elections: they did not vote, they voted for the Republican, Democratic, or third party candidate;
wrote on behalf of a candidate, were not eligible to vote, or chose not to respond.
University of Illinois students, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020, walk past a vote-by-mail box in the northwest corner of the college courtyard in Urbana, Illinois.AP Photo / Charles Rex Arbogast
Respondents were also asked their race and ethnicity, gender, family educational history, college degree, religion, sexual orientation, and other identifying characteristics.
In terms of racial groups, we found that students who identified as Asian American / Asian / Pacific Islander / Native Hawaiian participated less in the elections, with 26.2% revealing that they did not vote in 2016.
Black / African American, White, and Latino students were significantly more likely to have voted in the last election.
And every one of the Native American students eligible to vote in 2016 did.
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First-generation students, regardless of race, were also unlikely to vote
.
29% of them were left out of the 2016 election, compared to 20% of students with at least one college-educated parent.
These non-voting trends continued when other important characteristics changed.
First-generation students in public institutions were just as likely not to vote as first-generation students in private institutions.
Similarly, Asian American business students were just as likely not to vote as Asian American students studying the arts or humanities.
Students in the air
These findings have a historical sense.
Both Asian Americans and low-income Americans, a racial group to which many first-generation students belong,
are traditionally less likely to vote
.
National politicians rarely make specific outreach efforts to Asian Americans, who make up 6% of the US population.
That leaves some with the "widespread feeling of not belonging to American politics," Caitlin Kim wrote for the New America research group in 2017.
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The 11 million Asian American eligible voters are an "untapped" power, says Neil Goh of the Woori Center, an advocacy organization for Asian Americans.
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The poorest Americans, on the other hand, are historically less likely to vote, in part due to a number of practical obstacles.
They are less likely to have identification, often face longer voting lines, and have a more difficult time finding their polling place.
Analysts say that just a small increase in turnout among the
38 million Americans living in poverty
could change the 2020 election.
Both Trump and Biden are trying to seduce blue collar workers [blue collar workers], who can capture the interests of first-generation voters.
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But new research on Asian American voters reveals that their once overwhelmingly Republican party preference has leaned firmly toward Democrats.
And Biden's vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been highlighting her Asian roots in an effort to appeal to these voters.
With Election Day just days away, many voters from both parties are already heavily committed to a candidate and unlikely to change their minds, so
campaigns are focused on winning and forming traditionally non-voting blocs
.
Asian American and first-generation students may be among the few votes still up for grabs.