Young Voters, Hispanics Up For Grabs In 2016 Race

Younger voters are emerging as the most volatile as both parties prepare for what could be a generational showdown in next year’s general election.

Depending on the specific matchups, voters give the Democratic presidential nominee as much as three-quarters of the youth vote, or as little as 37 percent, according to polling over the past six months that underscores just how unsettled the election is within the emerging generation of voters.

Hispanics are also living up to their reputation as swing voters, with a 30 percent variation in their voting preferences between a Democrat and a Republican, according to a Washington Times analysis of recent polling.

More broadly, women are more settled as a voting group than men, and voters in the South, who lean Republican more than those in the rest of the country, are less of a swing group than elsewhere. Voters making less than $50,000 a year are more of a swing group than those with higher incomes, the analysis found.

Without any “soccer moms” or “NASCAR dads” — groups that pollsters identified in previous elections as key swing constituencies — the major battlegrounds now appear to be the same groups as in the past: self-identified independents, Hispanics and younger voters.

“The younger, 18- to 34-year-old voters could be one of the tipping points,” said David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. “Do they turn out for the Democrat in the way they did Obama in 2008 or even 2012, or do they yawn? They seemed to break late in 2012.”

Mr. Yepsen said his students are turned off by politics and by the negativity of the debate, and are less enthused than their elder siblings in 2008.

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