Just Over Half of Young Adults Voted in the 2020 Presidential Election. Will Gen Z Exceed That in 2024?

Every elec­tion sea­son, much pub­lic dis­cus­sion focus­es on vot­er turnout, par­tic­u­lar­ly for young adults who have demon­strat­ed impres­sive civic engage­ment in recent elec­tions. Accord­ing to the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter, 51% of young adults ages 18 to 24 vot­ed in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, a large increase from 43% in 2016. Since the start of the cen­tu­ry — when the turnout rate was just 36% in 2000 — the youth vote has gen­er­al­ly trend­ed upward in pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. The num­ber of young adults who vote has also grown from about 8.6 mil­lion in 2000 to near­ly 13.8 mil­lion in 2020.

Youth civic engage­ment activists and lead­ers are work­ing hard to main­tain this momen­tum in 2024, with a focus on Gen­er­a­tion Z, as it cur­rent­ly spans ages 12 to 27. Mem­bers of this gen­er­a­tion made up one-tenth of the 2020 elec­torate and added 8.3 mil­lion new­ly eli­gi­ble vot­ers since Novem­ber 2022 — reach­ing an esti­mat­ed 41 mil­lion total eli­gi­ble vot­ers in 2024.

Trends for Young Adult Vot­ing in Midterm Elections

Gen­er­al­ly, turnout in midterm elec­tions is low­er for all vot­ing age groups com­pared to pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. Among young peo­ple ages 18 to 24, more than 1 in 4 (28%) vot­ed in the 2022 midterm, slight­ly below the 2018 rate (32%), but sub­stan­tial­ly above the 2014 rate (17%). The 2018 midterm broke records for its high turnout among all age groups, and young adults were wide­ly cred­it­ed for their extra­or­di­nary engage­ment that year. Youth turnout in 2022 was not far behind the 2018 record, though, and some experts report that the 2022 midterm had the sec­ond-high­est youth vot­ing rate in near­ly three decades.

It is crit­i­cal to main­tain these gains in active young vot­ers, as they are impor­tant civic par­tic­i­pants, and empow­er­ing them to vote ben­e­fits their lives and our democracy.

State Dif­fer­ences in Young Adult Vot­er Turnout

Over the last two decades, most states with avail­able data saw increas­es in young adult vot­er turnout in both the midterm (2002–2022) and pres­i­den­tial (2000–2020) elec­tions. How­ev­er, the young vot­er turnout varies wide­ly from state to state and elec­tion to elec­tion with­in each state.

Among states with avail­able data in 2020, esti­mates of young adults who vot­ed in the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions ranged from near­ly one-third in Okla­homa (31%) and Arkansas (32%) to more than two-thirds in Min­neso­ta (69%), Mary­land (71%) and New Jer­sey (75%). State-lev­el turnout in pri­or pres­i­den­tial elec­tions was marked­ly low­er, with 2016 fig­ures span­ning 22% to 61%, for example.

In the 2022 midterm, only 1 in 7 young adults vot­ed in Nebras­ka and West Vir­ginia (both 14%), com­pared to near­ly half in Wis­con­sin (49%) and Michi­gan (46%). In the pre­vi­ous 2018 midterm, youth civic engage­ment was much high­er, with turnout rang­ing from a low of 21% to a high of 48%, among states with data.

Why Does Vot­ing and Civic Engage­ment Mat­ter for Young Adults?

When young peo­ple play an active role in elec­tions or oth­er pol­i­cy change efforts, they devel­op skills and knowl­edge, and they become empow­ered to help shape their futures, strength­en their com­mu­ni­ties and con­tribute to democ­ra­cy. In elec­tions, they vote for poli­cies that they believe will help them and their fam­i­lies suc­ceed, whether it is relat­ed to finan­cial secu­ri­ty, health care, repro­duc­tive free­dom, cli­mate change, safe­ty, equal­i­ty, edu­ca­tion or oth­er issues. Civic engage­ment cre­ates valu­able lead­er­ship skills, which can help youth and young adults thrive through­out their lives.

Learn More on Youth and Young Adult Civic Engage­ment & Oth­er Issues

These data on vot­ing trends are con­tin­u­al­ly updat­ed in the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter, along with 60-plus oth­er indi­ca­tors about youth and young adults, includ­ing teen par­tic­i­pa­tion in com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice or vol­un­teer work. This dataset is part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Thrive by 25 focus, which works to ensure that all young peo­ple have what they need to real­ize their full potential.

Explore more of our blog posts and pub­li­ca­tions relat­ed to this top­ic and Gen­er­a­tion Z:

• Ear­ly Lessons in Engag­ing Youth and Adults in Com­mu­ni­ty Change Efforts
• How Young Adults View Social Con­nect­ed­ness and Access Resources
• Case Stud­ies for Sup­port­ing Youth Lead­er­ship and Eco­nom­ic Opportunity
• A Nation­al Pro­file of Youth and Young Adults
• Core Char­ac­ter­is­tics of Gen­er­a­tion Z
• Social Issues That Mat­ter to Gen­er­a­tion Z
• What the Sta­tis­tics Say About Gen­er­a­tion Z

In addi­tion, the Cen­ter for Infor­ma­tion and Research on Civic Learn­ing & Engage­ment at Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty, a non­par­ti­san research orga­ni­za­tion focused on youth civic engage­ment, is a use­ful resource on this topic.

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