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If you've followed my work for any length of time, you know that one topic gets me excited more than any other: young voters. And I love YouGov's polling to better understand this group. So when I popped open the crosstabs of the latest YouGov/Economist survey to take a peek...
Yikes.
Republicans for a long, long time have struggled with young people. And to be sure, there's no evidence in this YouGov poll that they have warmed to the GOP or conservatism. They break D+11 on the generic ballot, far more Dem leaning than any other age group. But at the same time, half say they either would rather have a narrowly divided Congress or they just don't care. Only about a quarter say they'll definitely vote. The overwhelming message is: "meh."
They're not voting Republican, but the problem for Democrats is...they might not be voting at all.
Read on for more!
The current Real Clear Politics averages for the President's job approval are:
Overall job approval: 41.3% approve (down .3 from last week)
Economic job approval: 38.3% approve (up .6 from last week)
COVID-19 job approval: 44.0% approve (up .7 from last week)
Not a huge number of new polls and not a huge amount of movement here, either. COVID-19 job approval continues to be just a bit above overall job approval, suggesting the pool of Americans who aren't big Biden fans but nevertheless give him credit on the virus has shrunk to near-oblivion. Maybe it's just harder to feel upbeat about COVID-19 when, according to that YouGov/Economist poll from this week only a third of people do NOT know someone who tested positive for the virus in the past month.
It's also worth noting that Biden's favorability is in rough shape these days, too - and among voter groups that are supposed to be part of the "Scranton Joe" Democratic coalition.
That YouGov/Economist poll has Biden at only 36% favorables, and when looking at it by race and education, his appeal among non-college educated white voters - male and female - is scant at only around 27-28%. Only 39% of Hispanic voters have a favorable view of Biden. And among young voters, wow has Biden de-polarized the electorate by age...it is the youngest voters who are the least likely to say they have a favorable view of Biden (only 24%). That's partially driven by the percent who just don't care or have an opinion either way, but there's also a solid 56% unfavorable there - the highest unfavorables among any age group.
Young voters are also the least likely to see Biden as a strong leader (only 19%!) or to think he's honest (only 26%!).
Just think of what a Republican Party actually committed to trying to win younger voters could achieve in this environment if they wanted to! But I digress.
Because Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight calculate their "generic ballot" in different ways, with 538 adjusting polls based on past observed skew, I'll include each here each week for context:
RCP: Republicans +3.9 (GOP advantage down .2 from one week ago)
538: Republicans +1.9 (GOP advantage down .1 from one week ago)
Almost no movement on this issue. Republicans still look quite good for the midterms, though even more redistricting news from last night casts doubt on the extent to which new district lines will help or hinder the GOP's chances. (In North Carolina, a GOP-friendly map was struck down and is expected to be replaced by something more favorable to Democrats, per The New York Times.)
One word of caution for Republicans: watch out for what issues are the top issues headed into November. On the economy, Republicans have a big issue-handling advantage - for now. On immigration and education they've eaten into Democrats' former lead on this question. On crime, Republicans are favored.
But health care - the dominant issue in the 2018 midterms - Democrats maintain an advantage. That Fox poll I wrote about last week had great news for Republicans all over but still had a D+16 margin on which party do people trust more to handle health care. And in the YouGov/Economist poll that is driving my thinking this week, health care is tied with the economy as the top issue.
Granted, this is driven partially by Democrats who - not wanting to pick an issue that is bad for their side - choose either health care (24%) or climate change (25%) in much larger numbers, but even among independents, health care is tied for second and it is a particularly pronounced issue among non-college educated white voters - a key group that Republicans have wooed in recent years. In fact, jobs and the economy rate just about the same level of "very important" among white non-college educated women as does health care.
Is it too early to talk 2024? Yes! Do I care? Not really!
Not a ton new on this front this week, but last week I skipped over my firm's coverage of the Democratic 2024 nomination contest. We asked an "If Joe Biden doesn't run..." question and found Kamala Harris in the lead but maybe not by as she might like given that she is the sitting VP? Harris comes in at 30% with Mayor Pete at 12% and Elizabeth Warren and 8%.

Source: Echelon Insights
Former presidential potential candidate Michael Avenatti was unavailable for comment.
Here's how this week's COVID-19 picture looks, The New York Times.
COVID-19 7-day new case average: 295,922 (14 day change of -57%).
COVID-19 7-day hospitalizations average: 121,600 (14 day change of -23%).
Thank GOODNESS. This is a clear, unmistakable trend toward Omicron dropping like a rock. And while some indicators (like deaths) are still in troubling territory, it is very apparent looking at the data that this variant has burned through the country and we are now coming out the other side. A drop in new cases of over fifty percent? That's fantastic news.
Here's how this week's economic picture looks.
AAA's National Average Price of a Gallon of Gas: $3.44 (up seven cents from last week)
Unemployment (Jan 2022): 4% (up from 3.9% last month)
Inflation (Dec 2021): 7% year over year (fresh data comes out Feb 10)
The unemployment rate staying about the same masks what was otherwise a pretty great jobs report according to many economic observers. While last week's ADP report had job growth looking bad, the government's own data shows a much rosier picture, with over 450,000 new jobs in the last month and some major revisions of late 2021 data. Jobs reports that had looked dismal in the moment have since been revisited with more information and come away not looking so bad after all.
The question then is: if the economy on paper is becoming good but the economy in people's minds is not, what does it mean? Recall a few weeks ago I mentioned that Lynn Vavreck/UCLA study: in midterms, perception of economic conditions matters more than reality. Example: gas prices aren't even above $3.50 right now (though they're close), but a majority of voters in that YouGov/Economist poll think gas prices on average will be over that limit three months from now.
The Biden administration can tout all kinds of charts, but if people are still going to the grocery store, finding all they can get is chicken wings, and those wings are expensive, a 4% unemployment rate on paper might not do a lot of heavy lifting.
I joined CNN this week as a political contributor! See you on TV.
I'm not the only one who doesn't have the usual Olympic fever. (WSJ)
For something completely different: my friend Kelly Maher over at Real Best Life is awaiting the arrival of some baby goats on her farm. Much better content than anything about polling!
(Cover photo credit: Getty Images/Hill Street Studios)
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