Of millennials who are registered voters, 57 percent are Democratic or lean Democratic and 36 percent are Republican or lean Republican, according to 2016 data from the Pew Research Center.
Millennials seem to be divided about whether they are conservatives or liberals, but 41 percent identify themselves as independents, 34 percent identify themselves as Democrats, and 22 percent identify themselves as Republicans. Even though college students may identify with one party, younger voters have not been showing up to vote. Only 46.1 percent of 18-29 year olds voted in the 2016 election compared to 70.9 percent of those 65 and older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“I can say that one reason millennials have had low voter turnout in the last few presidential elections is that many were in college,” Menke said.
Some students do not have the ability to go home to register to vote during the semester, and certain state laws exclude college-issued student IDs as a form of identification they could use to vote. The limited number of polling sites near campus and time spent waiting to a cast a ballot may also cause some students not to vote. Menke said the process to vote is complicated for college students.
College students who want to vote typically face a problem when trying to do so because the institution they attend is not near their residence where they registered, said Donna Menke, an education professor at the University of Memphis. She said this makes voting difficult for some millennials.
“College students often have low voter turnout because they are not registered in the district in which they attend college and often do not complete absentee ballots,” Menke said.
The Pew study shows undergraduate students are evenly divided with 46 percent voting or leaning Republican, and 45 percent voting or leaning Democratic. In 2008, 53 percent of college students were Democratic or leaned Democratic versus 36 percent who were Republicans or leaned Republican.
Of registered voters with college degrees in 2016, 53 percent identified as Democrats while 41 percent identified as Republican. When asking registered voters who earned high school diplomas or less, 46 percent claimed to be Democrats, and 45 percent identified as Republican.
College students tend to align their political views with the beliefs of family members rather than professors in class or the students around them on campus, said Antonio de Velasco, a communications professor at the U of M. He also said professors are not influential on students, even though professors tend to be more liberal.
“There is no evidence that I’ve seen that suggests that college professors on the whole are turning their students into one or another ideology,” de Velasco said.
De Velasco said the way politicians run for office tends to not put much effort to campaign to the younger generation of college students. Because students generally do not go out to vote, they focus on the population that does turn out to vote, like people over the age of 65.
“Political campaigns have limited resources,” de Velasco said. “Obviously the political campaigns are going to put more into getting the people they know they can get to vote rather than taking a risk with college students.”
