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The millennial voting bloc is coalescing around the candidates running outsider, insurgent campaigns, according to a new poll released by Harvard University.

Ben Carson and Donald J. Trump are locked in a statistical dead heat for the youth vote, while Senator Bernie Sanders enjoys a 41 percent-to-35 percent advantage over Hillary Clinton. The likely millennial voters said that “integrity, levelheadedness and authenticity,” and not political experience, were the attributes they were looking for as they made their choice for president.

The poll finds that a majority of millennials, 56 percent, would still prefer to see a Democrat win the White House in 2016, which a news release notes is a 5 percent increase from the spring.

Regardless of party affiliation, however, candidates may have to put in extra work if they hope to court the youth vote. Only 20 percent considered themselves “politically engaged and active,” and fewer than half said they were following the 2016 presidential campaign.

Perhaps more ominous, half of those polled believe the American dream is “dead.”

The I.O.P. nationwide poll was conducted online by GfK Oct. 30 to Nov. 9 with a random sample of 2,011 adults ranging in age from 18 to 29. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

But I.O.P. polling re-fielded after the Nov. 13 Paris terrorist attacks, asking in particular about millennials attitudes toward combating ISIS. Whereas only 48 percent supported sending ground troops to combat ISIS before the attacks in Paris, now 60 percent are in favor of sending ground troops to defeat the terrorist group.