Young Voters Swing Hard to Democrats in Midterms: 65% of Voters Aged 18-29 Back Democratic House Candidates
Young voters swung decisively toward Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections, according to preliminary analysis released on November 4 by CIRCLE, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. Nationally, 65% of voters aged 18 to 29 cast their U.S. House ballots for a Democratic candidate, compared with 31% for a Republican, a 34-point Democratic margin that CIRCLE says is among the highest youth-vote advantages it has ever recorded in a national election.
The figures come from the NORC Civic Health & Elections Project, and CIRCLE cautions that the data are preliminary and may shift slightly. Young voters cast about 11% of all ballots in this year's midterms, slightly below their 12% share in 2022.
A gender gap persists: 69% of young women backed Democratic House candidates, compared with 58% of young men. The shift among young men is notable: in the 2024 presidential election, 56% of young men supported President Donald Trump, according to AP VoteCast data, while a majority backed Democrats this cycle.
By race and ethnicity, AAPI youth supported Democrats at 80%, Black youth at 78% and Latino youth at 70%. White youth also favored Democrats 60% to 36%, and young white men backed Democrats by a 10-point margin. Young voters with a college degree supported Democrats at 69%, compared with 59% among those without college experience; youth in urban counties backed Democrats at 70% and those in suburban counties at 61%.
At the state level, young voters were a major force in several close races: 70% of Georgia youth backed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms and 71% backed Jon Ossoff in the state's U.S. Senate race, while 76% of Mississippi youth supported Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom. CIRCLE says it will keep updating its youth vote analysis through Election Week.
(Source: CIRCLE at Tufts University)
Source: CIRCLE at Tufts University
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：选民在投票站的投票隔间填写选票（资料图）。Phil Roeder 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: A voting booth at a U.S. polling place (file photo). Photo by Phil Roeder, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
