The headline is, "Rural voters lean red, young voters lean blue. So what's a young, rural voter to do?" The transcript (which is different from how I recall the podcast) leads with Anderson Clayton who, at 25, is the youngest state party chair in the nation and has been featured in earlier posts here and in my academic article (with Kacyelee Klein) here:
"My own people are the ones that I've got to figure out a way to motivate and mobilize and get energized around building this thing up from the bottom," said Anderson Clayton...
"I want to go out there and fight for everybody — and young people especially," she said.
Clayton, who is from Roxboro, N.C., about an hour northwest of Raleigh, is honest about the party's flaws in her state. Following a handful of federal and state losses in the 2022 midterms, she acknowledged Democrats dropped the ball when connecting with young voters, as well as rural and Black voters — three key parts of the state's voting base.
* * *
Biden's popularity is low among rural, independent and young voters. According to the latest NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist polling, 38% of both young voters and independents approve of his job in office. Among rural voters, that number stands at just 28%.
But within those groups, Democrats may have an in. While rural voters nationwide typically vote Republican, young rural voters are more evenly split. In 2020, 50% of rural voters under 30 voted for Donald Trump, while 47% voted for Biden.
NPR sat down with with six young voters who grew up in rural, small towns across North Carolina to discuss what politicians need to do to win their votes in 2024.
Many were critical of how politicians on both sides see their communities.
Listen to the podcast to hear what these six rural young people had to say.
Postscript from NPR on Sept. 11, 2023: Meet the New Bosses: Younger than the Old Bosses.
No comments:
Post a Comment