Biden gets campaign boost from coalition of youth voters

A coalition of youth voters on Monday gave Joe Biden’s re-election campaign a welcome shot in the arm amid swirling concerns over the president’s age and mental acuity.

The endorsement from 15 groups of mostly gen Z and young millennial voters was announced to mark the launch of Students for Biden-Harris, an initiative from the campaign designed to recapture the support of younger voters who helped propel Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House in 2020.

Florida congressman Maxwell Frost, who at 27 is the youngest member of the House, will serve on its national advisory board and host its first meeting in Washington DC on Thursday. The organization will hold regular virtual and in-person meetings around the country as it seeks to build a network of chapters, many on university and college campuses.

“Young voters were crucial in delivering the election for President Biden and Vice-President Harris in 2020, and they will be just as consequential in 2024,” Frost said in a press release announcing the coalition.

It is part of a wider White House outreach to younger voters, whose support for Biden, 81, and Harris has become more lukewarm as their first term has progressed, research suggests.

A Harvard Youth poll in the fall found that only 49% of respondents aged 18 to 29 “definitely” planned to vote in the 2024 election, down from 57% at the same point four years ago; and that Biden’s approval rating among that group stood at only 35%.

On the issues that concern young voters most, including the climate emergency, gun violence, abortion, education and protecting democracy, a plurality of voters said they trusted neither Biden nor Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee.

Speculation that young voters