On the cusp of the 1972 U.S. Senate election in Delaware, 63-year-old incumbent James Caleb Boggs—a nostalgia candidate, regarded as grandfatherly and beloved by the Republican party—was running virtually unopposed. The only Democrat willing to challenge him was 29-year-old county councilman Joe Biden, whose chances looked bleak. His campaign was severely underfunded, his rejection of the term “liberal” alienated less centric Democrats, and he was trailing Boggs by 28 points in the polls.

Nevertheless, Biden was able to eke out a razor-thin victory using young voters as his secret weapon. The 26th Amendment had granted 18-year-old Americans the right to vote only a year prior, creating a new demographic which Biden did not overlook. He campaigned in high school classrooms, assembled 2,000 young volunteers to spread advertisements across the state, and his enthusiasm stood in stark contrast to his opponent’s (Boggs had not truly wanted to run for reelection, but he was pressured by President Nixon). Biden’s progressive policies, too, appealed to the sensibilities of young voters. He called for equitable taxation, conservation of wetlands, and the nation’s withdrawal from the Vietnam War. There is no question about it: Biden won the 1972 election because he won the youth vote.

Some 50 years later, on social media platforms and inside pro-Palestine protests—two spaces dominated by young people—Biden is referred to as “Genocide Joe.” 

I have spent my fair share of time in college classrooms and social circles with left-leaning young adults. Here is the general consensus that I have gathered: at a certain point into Biden’s 2024 campaign, the Dark Brandon persona was no longer funny. The Biden administration’s robust military and financial support of Israel during the war on Gaza has crossed a significant ethical boundary for many voters (especially those enrolled in college). Even more were disenchanted by Biden’s failure to provide student loan forgiveness and pass voting rights legislation, and the increasingly glaring truth of his old age. On a broader scale, young voters are dissatisfied with the two-party system: a GenForward poll from May showed that 34% of voters aged 18 to 26 would support a third-party candidate. For many young leftists, the popular Democratic slogan “vote blue no matter who” leaves more than a bad taste in the mouth. It is considered dangerous, a harbinger of political idolatry within the party, and an indication that Democratic politicians and voters are willing to turn a blind eye to intra-party issues, even if—and when—lives hang in the balance.

I spoke to Katherine Abughazaleh (also known as Kat Abu on social media) about how Biden lost the youth vote and whether she thought Kamala Harris could gain it back. Abughazaleh formerly worked at Media Matters for America, tracking disinformation and dangerous media narratives. “Originally, I was focused on Sean Hannity, and then Tucker Carlson for two years until he got shit-canned,” said Abughazaleh. Now she is a contributor for Zeteo, the new media organization founded by Mehdi Hasan, and the magazine Mother Jones. She also has a significant following on TikTok, Instagram, and X, where she posts what she calls “video explainers” about topics ranging from Fox News to the Democratic party. 

It can be argued that Biden lost support for his reelection campaign before it began. “A lot of us voted for Joe Biden expecting him to be a one-term president,” said Abughazaleh in a video she posted after the first presidential debate between Biden and Donald Trump. This was not an unsubstantiated notion: Biden had said that he considered himself a “transition candidate,” and at a rally in 2020, stated: “I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else.” 

Up until that fateful debate—after which a number of senior Democrats from Nancy Pelosi to Chuck Schumer called on Biden to drop out of the race—it seemed that younger Democratic voters and politicians were the only people to raise concerns about Biden’s age, presidency, and ability to run a successful campaign for reelection. When I asked Abughazaleh why she thought older voters maintained their support for Biden much longer than younger voters, she said: “I think they remember the good old days. They think that there were good old days, because they personally benefited from Reagan-type Democratic policies, or in some cases, just Clinton policies that were actually down the middle of American politics. Their entire viewpoint of the world is colored by the good old days—not just before Covid, but before 9/11. And neither of those are coming back.”

Young people are generally more disappointed in Biden’s presidency than their elders are: in April, 68% of voters aged 18 to 29 disapproved of Biden’s presidency, while all older age ranges hovered around a (still-significant) 60% disapproval rating, according to Pew Research Center. GenForward’s poll from this past May indicated that the primary concern among most young voters is economic inflation (with the threat to democracy, income inequality, and abortion/reproductive rights also among their top issues). 

It should come as no surprise that young voters (especially BIPOC, queer, and low-income voters) are among the most perturbed. Biden’s 2020 campaign leaned heavily on promises such as protecting abortion access, forgiving student loans, and expanding healthcare, which—although they have major implications for everyone in the United States—are especially poignant issues for younger people. “Young voters, communities of color, and women were the entire reason that the Democrats won in 2020, and the reason they didn't get completely blown out in 2022,” said Abughazaleh. “Biden didn't listen to that. Democrats didn't listen to that. He ran on codifying Roe v. Wade and providing voting rights legislation, and he let both of those slip through his fingers, meaning that half the country—half the women and anyone that needs access to reproductive health care—doesn't have access to it anymore.” Although Biden made it clear that he would sign Roe v. Wade into law if it reached his desk, a Democratic Congress would first be required to overcome a Republican filibuster. Additionally, he was unable to convince enough members of Congress to abolish the filibuster, which would have given him the power to protect voting rights.

Other promises of the Biden campaign, such as passing legislation to combat climate change and gun violence, have proven more successful in their progress: in 2021 Biden set a national goal to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and signed the Inflation Reduction Act the following year, making it the largest climate legislation in U.S. history. He also signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, which increased background checks and bolstered the mental health system, and announced another rule in 2024 which requires firearms dealers to run background checks on buyers.

Despite this progress, the point of no return for many young people—college students in particular—came during October 2023, when the war in the Gaza strip began. Since that date, over 41,000 Palestinian people have died as a result of Israeli attacks. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, lacking shelter, food, clean water, and medical care. The International Court of Justice called on Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza back in January due to its concerns over the Israeli military’s actions, but the barrage has continued nonetheless. 

Since the war began, Israel has received over $12.5 billion dollars in military aid from the United States, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. “If you want to go Boomer on it to see all of the shit that we supposedly can't afford here: we can't keep libraries open on the weekends, but we can ship a 50-ton bomb to Gaza. It’s just nuts,” said Abughazaleh. 

In speeches, President Biden has maintained his support of the Israeli military while making only brief nods to Palestinian suffering: “Israel has a right to go after Hamas…Israel has an added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population. But Israel also has a fundamental responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Gaza,” said Biden in his 2024 State of the Union address. The unwavering U.S. military support shown to Israel, however, has not backed up such sentiments.

There was an enormous student response to the role of the U.S. in the war on Gaza: in May 2024, the Crowd Counting Consortium documented 3,704 pro-Palestine protests at U.S. schools, including numerous encampments. This is to say nothing of the protests that have occurred outside of college campuses, such as the National March on Washington for Palestine, which drew roughly 300,000 participants. 

It seemed that Biden decided to forfeit reelection prospects and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris at the peak of his unpopularity, which young voters widely agree was the correct choice. A U.S. News/Generation Lab poll, conducted on voters aged 18 to 34, recently showed that Harris is leading Trump by 30 points in many battleground states—12 points higher than Biden’s lead amongst that demographic in July. “Before, it kind of felt like we would win despite Joe Biden, and now it feels like we could win because of Kamala,” Abughazaleh told me. “I think younger people are just excited that we won something. We made an old white man stop doing something. That's crazy.”

The flashier aspects of Harris’ campaign initially drummed up a lot of excitement online and in the media—for at least a week after her campaign launched, I could hardly spend an hour watching MSNBC without being blasted by the neon-green of Charli XCX’s Brat album cover, or the famous (infamous?) coconut quote—but this appeal to pop culture will not last, and ultimately, will not be enough to win the youth vote. I have heard many of my peers express concern over the fact that the official website for the Harris-Walz campaign avoided uploading a concrete list of policies for multiple weeks into their campaign; I have heard nobody express concern over its graphic design. Campaign image is absolutely secondary to policy for committed young voters.

Many young people are dissatisfied by the somewhat vague policies put out by the Harris campaign thus far (Harris’ plan to erase medical debt and her “middle class tax cut” have not been explained in great detail), and the fact that certain policies (on Gaza, for example) bear resemblance to Biden’s least popular. Harris recently rolled back her 2019 statement that she would support a fracking ban. Her background as a prosecutor strikes the wrong chord with many young voters, who look upon the increased conviction rates caused by her offices with contempt. Other aspects of her candidacy are promising, however: Harris has expressed her commitment to expanding housing access, raising taxes on the rich, funding public education, forgiving student debt, pushing for abortion access, and more. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, has also made a positive impression on young voters; his National Rifle Association rating, which began at A and sank to F over the course of his political career, inspires optimism about his prospective influence on gun reform.

On Gaza, Harris has been one of the only members of Biden’s cabinet to raise significant concerns about the welfare of Palestinian civilians. “She's working hard to be empathetic,” said  Abughazaleh. “One thing I've appreciated, as a Palestinian person, is how she's brought attention to the fact that there are no sanitary napkins in Gaza for women, and shit that Joe Biden hasn't even mentioned. She declined to preside over a [Benjamin] Netanyahu speech to the Senate, and she's going to meet with him to tell him to stop bombing Palestinian civilians. She has been the only person in the entire Biden administration that has expressed any sympathy.” 

It feels almost superfluous to detail the stakes of this election, the havoc another Trump term would wreak on the country; most of us already know. Donald Trump is a convicted felon who was impeached twice. He plans to abolish abortion, get rid of the Education Department, cut environmental regulations, detain migrants at the border, and ban gender-affirming care. Young people are not concerned over the question of whether Harris truly represents the lesser of two evils—four years of the Trump administration and a mere glance at Harris’ track record show that she does. We are concerned because a campaign, nevermind a presidency, cannot thrive on that assertion alone. 

Many young people share a common anxiety about the rise of political idolatry within U.S. politics—a phenomenon that has occurred mostly within far-right circles, but which many fear is brewing within Democratic groups as well, as party members become more hesitant to critique their candidates for fear of letting the other, more enthusiastic side, win. Young people expect more nuance from the Harris campaign and the Democratic party, a degree of sophistication above being anti-Trump. “A lot of people are more scared of trying something different than just going along with the status quo,” said Abughazaleh. “I love the quote ‘do not obey in advance,’ because that's what a lot of these types of voters do: they're scared of fascism, but they're more scared of actually having to do something to fight fascism.” 

If anything has been demonstrated by Biden’s withdrawal from the election, it’s that putting pressure on our politicians—those we elect to represent our interests and protect our basic rights—works. In November I will cast my vote in the presidential election for the first time since I became eligible, and two questions will be on my mind: what do we owe this democracy? What does this democracy owe us?