David Hogg, call your office. Or better yet, call your parents’ basement.
The activist wunderkind has been on a tear through the country, advocating for gun control and voter registration ever since the deadly Parkland shooter that left over a dozen of his classmates dead.
Since that horrific event, Hogg has transformed himself into a quasi-martyr, who has taken up the cause of gun-control advocacy to ensure students his age never have to face the kind of mortal threat he faced ever again.
The results, so far, have been largely underwhelming. (RELATED: Democrats’ Favorite Gun-Grabber David Hogg Just Lost Even More Support.)
Now, it looks like Hogg and his helpers just got even worse news, as their push to get more young people registered to vote is actually failing.
Emily Guskin of The Washington Post reports:
The surge in activism among young Americans about gun laws after February’s Parkland, Fla., shootings, and that group’s general disapproval of President Trump, has raised the prospect that they will turn out at higher rates in this year’s midterm elections.
An early sign backed up the possibility: voter registration data. Separate analyses by the New York Times and Democratic voter database firm TargetSmart Communications found that younger adults made up a greater percentage of new voter registrants across several states.
But a Washington Post analysis of voter registration data tracked by Aristotle Inc. finds hardly any change in the overall share of registered voters ages 18 to 29 since the Parkland shootings. That, coupled with low enthusiasm from the youngest voters and the group’s history of anemic turnout in midterm elections, does not point to under-30 voters having a huge impact in November.
Will young people actually vote in November? @washingtonpost pollster @EmGusk looked at the numbers https://t.co/ToiqBhToO8
— Kayla Epstein 📰 (@KaylaEpstein) August 1, 2018
To be fair, it’s hard to get teenagers to do anything that isn’t directly connected to their own selfish impulses. Wherever you stand on the gun-control debate, increased civic participation is a good thing. But it doesn’t look like young Americans are even taking the time to do the most basic of civic obligations: register to vote.
For Republicans, this will be a boon. The GOP is generally regarded as a party with a primarily older base, while Democrats tend to rely on the young and minorities.
If young voters stay home this November, expect Republicans to have a better showing at the polls than what is already predicted.
