Haley M. didn’t vote in the primaries for the 2016 presidential election in her home state of California, but she was not happy when Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee for president. To express her dislike for Clinton, Haley, 25, voted for Donald Trump in the general election — assuming, like much of the rest of the country, that Clinton would win anyway.

“It was really shocking to me that Trump actually got elected,” she says. Now, unhappy with the president, she admits that she wishes she’d taken the chance to vote in the primaries. “Maybe if more people had gotten involved earlier, we could have ended up with two candidates that weren’t Clinton or Trump and been a lot better off.” She says she's heading to the polls for both the primaries and the midterms this year.



As the 2018 election season begins, a new poll from Cosmopolitan and SurveyMonkey finds that young adults are deeply dissatisfied with their elected representatives and unusually motivated to vote in both sets of elections in 2018. The online survey of a national sample of 4,706 adults, conducted from February 22 – 25, found that 60 percent of young people (ages 18 – 34) say they’re absolutely certain to vote or will probably vote in the upcoming primary elections, and 68 percent say the same of the midterm elections. By contrast, less than half (47 percent) of young people say they always or nearly always voted in past primary elections, and only 25 percent say they voted in the 2014 midterm elections.

Turnout in the year’s first primary election, which took place on March 7 in Texas, was higher than usual among people who don’t usually vote in off-year or primary elections. But it wasn’t as high as many polls had predicted, which may be a reflection of another finding from the Cosmopolitan/SurveyMonkey poll: Many young people don’t know when their state’s primary will be held, and relatively few say they’re familiar with the candidates running to represent them at the state or local level.

In the survey, only 30 percent of young adults said they know when their state’s primary election will be held this year. (Majorities of older respondents also reported that they're unaware of when their state’s primary election is scheduled to take place.) The survey also found that 17 percent of young people are not registered to vote, a much higher number than among adults ages 35 - 64 (6 percent) or adults ages 65 and older (3 percent). In response to this, Cosmopolitan is launching the #VoteTwice campaign, which encourages young people to vote in both the primaries and the midterms by raising awareness of the primary dates and candidates, and by helping people register to vote on Cosmopolitan.com.

Ben Nichols, 21, says he's voted Democratic in past primaries, but he's unlikely to vote in the upcoming primary because doesn't know when the election is happening in his new home of Washington D.C. Plus, he says, logistical hurdles are a significant deterrent. "It's harder to get re-registered without a local driver's license, which I don't have, so then it becomes a whole complicated process that involves going to the DMV," he says. (Editors note: you actually don’t need a local driver’s license to register in Washington D.C., just a utility bill, bank statement or paycheck with your name and local address on it.) He also anticipates that it will take him a while to get up to speed on local politics before the November election, by which point he hopes to be registered to vote.



“I don’t know much about my congressmen or state representatives, and it’s hard to find information about them — it’s not readily available,” says Chase Williams, 20. He lives in Arizona and says that he’s a big supporter of the president, but isn’t sure if he’ll vote in the primary because he doesn’t know when it is and doesn’t feel sufficiently informed. “I’d like to vote, but it means doing a lot of research,” he says. “It’s not at the top of the priority list.”

Other top reasons young people cited for not voting in past primaries were not knowing enough about the candidates (26 percent), being too busy (25 percent), disliking the candidates or feeling like they are all the same (23 percent), not paying attention to politics (21 percent), or feeling like their vote didn’t matter (19 percent). In follow-up interviews, several respondents expressed confusion about who was on the ballot or whether the elections were for president or Congress.

Michael Williams, 20, who lives in Alabama, says he didn’t vote in the state’s special election for Senate in December, and doesn’t plan to vote in the primary. That’s not because he doesn’t have opinions about politics — he didn’t say who he voted for in 2016, but mentioned that he finds the president’s behavior “embarrassing” — but he says he doesn’t have time to get familiar with the candidates and their issues. “I’m kind of lazy when it comes to elections,” he says. “It’s hard to keep track of all of the different politicians’ views, and that makes it hard when it’s not a presidential election — there are so many candidates I’m honestly not familiar with.”

“It feels like our passivity might have helped get us into this bad political climate. I don’t want to be part of that.”

If anything is likely to motivate young people to register and seek out information on the primaries, according to our findings, it’s their unhappiness about the outcome of the 2016 presidential election and dissatisfaction with politicians and the political system generally. “I used to be more passive about voting, but it feels more important now than it has before,” says Cheryl Horne, 27, who lives in New York. “I’m angry and scared about the president’s behavior, and it feels like our passivity might have helped get us into this bad political climate. I don’t want to be part of that passivity anymore.”

More than half (53 percent) of young people say the results of the 2016 presidential election are making them more likely to vote in this year’s general election. Only 30 percent approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president, and a majority (52 percent) strongly disapprove of the president’s performance so far. Meanwhile, only 20 percent of young people approve of the way Congress is handling its job. Young people are somewhat happier with the way they’re being represented by state or local legislators, but only 40 percent say they are satisfied with the way these politicians are representing them.

For some young people, this unhappiness with government is a catalyst to get more politically involved. “I’ve called my representatives about net neutrality and about taking action on DACA,” says Rachel Camp, 21, who lives in Georgia. “I feel like if I don’t say something, I’m complicit in whatever bad policies get made.”

Alexis Larrouy, 23, lives in California and says that she’s become increasingly invested in what’s happening on the state level over the past year or two, which makes her more excited to vote in this year’s primaries. “Congress is not accomplishing much of anything as far as I can tell,” she says. “But state-level politicians actually make a lot of our decisions for us, especially on immigration and LGBT issues. And in states like California, the primaries are really important for determining who’s going to get elected.”

For others, skepticism about politicians reinforces a deeply held sense that their vote doesn’t matter, and that the government is too entrenched to change. Angelina Murrey, 30, lives in Missouri and says that she’s never voted — and doesn’t know if she’ll vote in the upcoming primaries — because she doesn’t believe her vote can make a difference. “Our system of government isn’t built to listen to the people or respond to what they want,” she says. “Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and she’s not president. My view is, our votes and our voices don’t really count.”

“We’ve got to get involved as early as possible and stop letting the parties make the decisions for us.”

While the survey found that young people are likeliest to participate politically by voting, significant numbers of them also reported that they are politically engaged in other ways, like sharing news articles about politics on social media (43 percent), writing to or calling their representatives (23 percent), or marching, protesting, or demonstrating (23 percent).

Ashley Bonhart, 26, lives in Ohio and says that although she’s always voted, she’s recently begun talking up the importance of voting and political engagement with her friends. “I try to talk about how much I believe in voting because a lot of people my age don’t see things that way,” she says. “I’ve been telling people you can’t just talk about how you want things to change. You have to actually do something about it, and voting is a great way to start.”

Emily Barone, 32, a Michigan resident, says that she feels it’s important to “have the courage of your convictions,” even if it means getting into disputes online. But others expressed mixed feelings about whether it was productive to share opinions on social media or with their friends. Brett M., 28, who’s a California resident and requested that his full name not be used, says that he’s gotten into too many fights with friends about Trump and politics and now tries to steer clear. “I’m going to vote because I want to try to contribute to some change happening in our government,” he says, “but in general I avoid discussing politics because it only makes my day worse.”

The biggest challenge for candidates and organizations looking to bring more young voters to the polls this year will be convincing them to channel their displeasure with the government by registering to vote and casting a ballot. Increased turnout among young people could especially be a boon for liberal candidates, since young adults are much likelier to identify as political independents (38 percent) or Democrats (30 percent) than as Republicans (18 percent). Older voters tend to be more conservative, and are still likelier than younger voters to say they’ll vote in primary or midterm elections. According to the survey, 76 percent of middle-aged adults (age 35 – 64) and 87 percent of seniors (age 65 and older) say they plan to vote in the primaries.

Haley M., the California voter who cast a ballot for Trump in 2016 and later regretted it, says that she thinks more young people need to vote in primaries so they can help choose candidates who reflect their values. “Until now, the parties have gotten to choose the candidates because we’ve let them,” she says. “And they keep picking people like Trump and Clinton who are really out of touch. If we want candidates who actually understand the problems in young people’s lives, we’ve got to get involved as early as possible and stop letting the parties make the decisions for us.”

This survey was conducted in partnership with SurveyMonkey.