As political turmoil in Washington and a drumbeat of school shootings have spurred activism among young people, there are growing signs that they will be backing up their voices with votes — and are already reshaping California’s political map.

An analysis released Tuesday by the Democratic data firm TargetSmart found that primary election turnout this year among 18 to 29-year-olds in California jumped 9.6 percent from 2014, the last midterm election. That was the second-highest increase of any state in the country.

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 California 16 and 17-year-olds have pre-registered to vote in the last two years, according to new data released Tuesday by the Secretary of State. And nearly half of those pre-registered teens are rejecting political parties altogether, choosing no party preference at a far higher rate than their parents.

More than 47 percent of the pre-registered voters are political independents, compared to 34 percent for Democrats and less than 10 percent for Republicans. For Californians as a whole, only about a fourth of registered voters select no party preference, a group that recently overtook registered Republicans.

“We hate the polarization and how stuck in their boxes everyone becomes,” said Emma Gerson, 16, a senior at Los Gatos High who signed up as no party preference and has been organizing her classmates to pre-register as well. “The people in my generation are a lot more open-minded when it comes to politics.”

The pre-registration program, which launched in 2016, lets high schoolers sign up and then be automatically registered once they turn 18. More than 104,000 pre-registered teens have already reached voting age and will be eligible to vote in the November midterms, and the number of pre-registered voters has doubled over the last five months. Many are among California voters registered when they obtain their driver’s licenses through the state’s motor voter law.

Some of those budding voters attribute the enthusiasm to the Trump administration and the litany of eye-popping headlines from Washington, D.C., as well as engagement in protests over gun violence.

Since Trump’s election, “people who I never expected to be politically active are really well versed on the issues and make informed decisions,” said 16-year-old Dublin High junior Arjav Rawal, who pre-registered. “We want to figure out how we can fix the country moving forward.”

But it’s not just national politics — Rawal, the president of his high school’s Democrats club, said he and his classmates are also paying attention to school board races and local elections that could decide issues closer to home.

Secretary of State Alex Padilla, whose office is leading the pre-registration effort, said the goal of the program was to lower barriers to voting.

“If young people are paying attention, they’ve realized in the last few years that elections matter and voting is important,” Padilla said in an interview.

This year’s midterms will be the first full election cycle where pre-registration has been an option for 16- and 17-year-olds. The pre-registration data spells bad news for Republicans, but Democrats should be concerned as well, said Sean Walsh, a Republican strategist in Los Angeles who worked for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Political consultants are going to have to work harder, the parties are going to have to work harder, and they’re going to have to target different voters,” Walsh said.

And he predicted that the pre-registration program would help boost young voter turnout in November. Typically, young people cast ballots at lower rates than their elders, but “if you’re motivated enough to go out and pre-register, you’re motivated enough to go out and vote for the first time,” Walsh said.

The TargetSmart analysis, which was based on voter files from 46 states, found that the share of registered voters aged 18-29 in California actually decreased slightly, by 0.28 percent, from February to September 2018. But the Golden State had a higher leap in young voter turnout from the 2014 primary to the 2018 primary than any state other than Oklahoma.

Already, advocacy groups like NextGen America, the San Francisco group run by anti-Trump billionaire Tom Steyer, have poured millions of dollars into youth organizing and voter turnout efforts, including ones in a handful of competitive California congressional races that could make or break Democrats’ hopes of retaking the House this year.

“After 2016, progressives really doubled down on efforts to turnout young voters,” said Will Simons, a NextGen spokesman. This election cycle, he said, “young people in California are fired up and ready to take that energy to the ballot box in November, and Democrats realize we need young voters to win.”

The deadline to register to vote in advance of the November election is Oct. 22, and anyone 16 or 17 can also pre-register. You can register or pre-register online at registertovote.ca.gov.