Ask The Experts: Youth Voter Engagement

Young voters, often defined as those under the age of 30, are routinely courted by political campaigns due to their status as a powerful – and often untapped – voting bloc. By 2028, millennial and Gen Z voters are expected to make up more than half of the U.S. voting population. In Pennsylvania, political organizations aren’t waiting until 2028 to engage and mobilize the commonwealth’s young voters – they’re doing it right now, through a mix of traditional and innovative political engagement efforts.

To get a better sense of how political campaigns and voting advocates are connecting with young voters, City & State recently spoke with three political leaders and youth voter engagement advocates: Erin DeSantis, chair of Pennsylvania High School Democrats; Thomas Kutz, chair of Pennsylvania Young Republicans; and Angelique Hinton, executive director of Pennsylvania Youth Vote.

These conversations have been edited for length and clarity.

What is your organization doing to connect with young voters this election cycle?

Erin DeSantis: We are doing a lot of outreach right now to ensure consistent contact with our members. One of the big things we're doing right now is what we're calling the HSDPA Youth Power Challenge. That's something where students – either in PA or out of state – can log the hours they spend doing things like phone-banking and canvassing for PA candidates, whether it's down-ballot races for the state House and Senate, or if it's for the Harris-Walz campaign here in PA. They can log their hours participating with us and, eventually, they can earn prizes. We're going to make some exclusive merch for our organization. 

We will contact some legislators to get these students some experience talking with them, maybe visiting the Capitol. We think that's a great way to incentivize high schoolers, because we are very busy people, and we have a lot going on – a lot competing for our time. Something like a very clearly defined service hours-type program has been really appealing to folks so far. One of the things you can get by participating is, no matter how many hours you do, you'll get a signed letter from our executive board saying, “Hey, you did six hours of service to political campaigns during the fall.” So it's a great way for students to apply what they've been doing in a more official sense, to college applications, honor societies, things like that. That's the Youth Power challenge that we launched right at the end of August, and it's been really successful so far. 

We're also, both through that challenge and as people communicate with us, getting them in contact with their county parties and other local Democratic organizations. This is great for promoting canvassing opportunities, which is our highest priority as far as voter outreach goes. For those who have school clubs or are interested in bringing the stuff into their school buildings, we also partner with the New Voters organization to help folks run voter registration drives at their schools. Again, this is a completely nonpartisan activity – it has to be – that students can do regardless of their school board politics or school administration politics, and a great way to engage more young folks in the process.

Thomas Kutz: The Young Republicans have a primary focus on voter outreach through door-knocking, phone calls and text messages, primarily – sometimes direct mail, and many of those efforts are targeted directly at younger voters. While we'll go out and knock doors for our candidates, often, we will say, “OK, this is when we're targeting young voters.” The message to them is pretty simple: Look at how much the cost of higher education has gone up, look at how much the cost to own a home has gone up, look at how much your grocery bill has gone up – and listen to our Republican platform that can help ease some of the effects of that inflation, and try to get that message out there. 

One of the cool things we've seen in polling is that young voters under 40 are swinging to the right – I think some 20 points since even 2020 … For us, what we're seeing is younger people starting to realize it's just too expensive to live right now; we want to reverse those effects. We, as the Young Republicans, have put out a platform to do that whenever we talk to young voters and try to encourage them: “Hey, this is what our party's about. Regardless of whatever the noise is at the top of the ticket, here's what we can do here in Pennsylvania and locally to help with that,” and help bring them on board.

Angelique Hinton: Back in 2020, I did some work that was more about voter registration. This was right before COVID happened. I had about six teachers I met with before school shut down. They all said the same thing to me: We don't need someone to register the students; we can do that ourselves. We need someone who can help them understand why they should vote. In 2021, what we did was we co-founded PA Youth Vote to provide that “why” for students, really helping connect issues that they care about every single day to voting and civic participation and how being civically engaged really will be what is needed to create the systemic changes that they want to see. 

I think most people don't understand that, in Pennsylvania in particular, there is very inequitable access to educational resources. So a lot of times, communities of color, low-income communities, are in underfunded school districts, and they are not getting access to civics and AP classes and all of those things, so they're not really taught how government works. More importantly, they have no idea how all of that is tied to issues they're impacted by every single day. We provide that connection for them when we engage them in a way that makes this process relevant. We really try to make sure that we're speaking to it at a very hyperlocal level because those offices are going to impact your day-to-day lived experience most directly. So we try to find different ways to engage youth in a way that meets them where they are.

Our initial model was in the classroom. We had a lot of students who went and testified to the school board, and ultimately, the Philadelphia School District got a policy where they actually pay teachers and the schools to work with us, and then we get funding to pay students. We give teachers all kinds of resources, show them how to pull a list of who's age-eligible, give them different tactics they can use, and support them in doing the work within the school. We create curriculum, and so for some schools, they're able to take that curriculum, they have their own kind of engagement that they're doing, and then we will come in, do a presentation and then work with students that we pay stipends to do voter registration year-round in the school. It looks very different depending on the school.

What are the issues that younger voters say are most important to them?

ED: The big one is affordability, whether in education, housing, or just living in general. We're starting to get to that age where we're thinking about where we're going to live in the future, if we're going to have kids in the future, that kind of thing. People are very concerned about being able to afford to live because prices are rising and we're all concerned about that. With that, we try to emphasize the fact that the Harriz-Walz campaign, and hopefully future administration, has solid plans to give credits to first-time homebuyers, up to $25,000 to help with down payments, which is incredible, and also work on affordable child care investments to make sure that once my generation starts to have more children, we can afford to have child care and those different resources that we need. 

People are really concerned about the fact that we exist in a time where we have less reproductive freedom than our own mothers did when they had us. That's not just women who are concerned about that; I think across genders, there are people who are concerned about that. So we will talk about how the Harris-Walz campaign is promising to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade. 

And overall, just stopping Project 2025. We believe that's a very dangerous plan that, if Trump were to get elected, would be implemented and would have long-lasting negative effects on the power of our government, the trust we have in our government – and it really hurts young people too, especially with things like getting rid of the Department of Education, severe restrictions or bans to our rights. It's really about being able to have the freedoms that we need and we deserve, and to have a prosperous future.

TK: No. 1 for our voters who are fresher out of college is the amount of debt they're in for jobs that seem to not pay enough to cover it. I think a lot of this demographic is at the point where they haven't bought a home yet. They haven't necessarily got married and had kids yet, and they're finding it hard to save for a home or child care costs because of their crushing debt from college. Or we're seeing young families who say, “I can't help the Young Republicans because I got to work an extra job to cover child care,” which costs as much as a mortgage does. So I think those are the themes we're seeing most. 

My neighbors across the street are a perfect example … that’s another mortgage payment. They're just going to double that monthly expense for child care during the day so both parents can return to work. One of the biggest issues we've seen with the workforce is women who have babies and don't want to go back to work because it doesn't make financial sense for them. If they're going to pay $2,000 a month in childcare, and they're not bringing home much more than that, it makes sense for them just to stay home. So now we have a workforce issue on top of that. 

I think the combination of those things makes it much harder to live as a young American than it was 15 to 20 years ago. 

AH: It really depends on the students. It depends on where they're located. It depends on what's going on in their homes. They also worry about affordable housing. They worry very much about debt … Student loan debt is something they care very much about. There are a lot of issues that they care very much about and you will see them shift sometimes going from one region to another, urban to suburban.

We're engaging with them to show how funding is a policy issue. Education is a policy issue that is decided at the state level in our legislature, and so helping them connect that now within Philadelphia. There's inequity within the school districts though, which students are very aware of. 

What are the most effective ways to reach and engage younger generations of voters?

ED: First off, if I had the answer to youth voter engagement, I would be very rich and famous. That's a big question in every campaign, in every space: “How do we get youth to engage?” Because, like you mentioned, those traditional forms of voter outreach, the door-knocking, the calling, it is not engaging young people where they're at. That's the biggest thing that I try to emphasize: Meet young people where they're at. You mentioned a strong social media presence using newer platforms like TikTok. I think we really see this done well with the Kamala HQ account on TikTok and Instagram – it’s a very Gen Z-oriented kind of style. It’s run by young people, too.

Especially when it comes to sharing news, like we're not reading newspapers, we're not even reading too many online articles. We're getting our news from social media. So being able to be a reliable, updated, consistent source on those social media platforms is key. That's something else that I try to do: just consistent contact, whether it's emails, text messages or social media updates. Consistency is key, because with how social media algorithms work, stuff gets buried constantly. You don't always reach people right away, but just keeping up consistency shows youth that these things exist in the long term, and that they're active in prioritizing social media. That's something that we consider in our endorsements. The candidate should have a fairly strong, consistent social media presence because that is something youths tend to respond to more. 

In my experience doing voter outreach, younger people aren't really picking up the phone as much, whether it's a time thing or, just like, “I don't know that number, not going to talk” sort of thing. This is more applicable to college, but meeting students where they're at – at a club fair, registering voters in the dining hall, that sort of thing. It's important to make these things that are, in reality, pretty low-effort – like voting, like registering to vote – really feel that way and show students that this is an attainable thing you can do.

TK: Back in the day, it was how many email addresses can you get on their list. I think that has changed a little bit. For us, it's utilizing every social media platform we can. To be honest, if I had someone I could pay to do TikToks, that'd be great, but we don't have that in our small organizational budget. But look, it's engaging with people on those social media platforms. It's text messages. It's just asking our members, “Hey, bring someone. Do you know someone?” and that's kind of the draw into it. 

We have to be active on those platforms, because you can't just send an email anymore or buy an email list and hope that that goes to the people you're looking for. You have to be more intentional about it and go meet people where they are. I think that's the most important part when you're trying to grow an organization. To effect change, the best way to get people to knock doors with us and help with voter outreach and voter contact is to bring them into the fold through those mediums, to go meet the voters where they are and try and have a conversation with them there.

AH: Young people don't want to be talked at; they want to be included in the conversation. I know people often think they're just hanging out on their phones, but they're very well-informed. They're getting a lot of information. But they want to be respected in their opinions and their thoughts. Often, people say, “Well, we want to engage young people, we want to work with young people.” It's really like they just want young people to show up and speak some scripted something. They're not interested in that at all. How do we engage youth? We bring in young people. I don't think any of our organizers are older than 23 at this point. They've been with us for three, four years and they come back because they know when we do interviews, we bring in young people to interview candidates. Really trying to make sure that you're including them both in the conversation and culturally makes sense. I was a person who worked in politics – I worked in the state Senate for a year and in political organizing before I switched to what I'm doing now. 

It is not culturally inviting for people that are not white, to be honest. It's a very white culture. They kind of do things the way they've always done them. Young people – they're on social media, whether we like it or not, they're on TikTok. We create a lot of digital content, understanding that's where young people are, trying to make sure that we are customizing it to something that will be attractive to young people. 

We do this huge march every year on National Vote Early Day. It's a big day, but it's also a very collaborative process. We go into all the schools in September, we start doing registration, we work with the teachers. This is in Philadelphia, and we are trying to expand this beyond Philadelphia. 

What do you do to ensure voters are paying attention to down-ballot races?

ED: High School Dems of PA works very closely with a lot of down-ballot races. Right now, that's state House and Senate candidates, mostly. We actually have an endorsements program where candidates can do a little questionnaire that we designed around youth issues and the concerns of youth in PA – and we have been endorsing candidates. We've had over 50 submissions so far and have endorsed most of those. Then what we can do with those campaigns is work directly with them to promote their opportunities to our network and make sure that students have opportunities to, like I said, do the canvassing and volunteering for these candidates – maybe even do things like help them out with their social media or go to their events. We do work closely with those candidates, and a lot of them do share those same values that the Harris-Walz campaign is promoting.

Overall, it's about the people we endorse defending and being a champion of these issues that youth are concerned about … I think youth voters do understand the importance. They understand … that the Pennsylvania state House and Senate are really the ones putting legislation into effect that affects our everyday lives. Our partnerships with these down-ballot candidates reinforce the importance of having representation at the local level. Of course, the national stage is very important to us, too, because, again, that helps to influence what happens at the state level. 

TK: Looking down-ballot, we tell them, “Look, these are the people who affect your day-to-day lives, even more so than the national level.” The national level might dominate the headlines, but we have the ability at the state level to decide what gets taxed, what tax credits are available to you in addition to federal tax credits. The local candidates and races affect your day-to-day state policy in all sorts of ways. 

For us, that is primarily played out in the state House, and not because I'm a state Rep – those are the races where it's easiest, first, to meet a candidate and have a conversation with them. Those are also the races where you can make the most amount of difference in those races by knocking doors. If you knock 10,000 doors in a state House race, it will have a much bigger effect than 10,000 doors in a congressional race, which is over 10 times the population. Young people are more engaged when they meet candidates, when they have good relationships and face-to-face interactions with those candidates – that's much more likely to happen at the down-ballot level. I think part of it, when we talk about those issues, is saying, “OK, here are some of the things that we've tried to do as a state, or that we're pushing the Young Republicans to make our state more competitive for business, more attractive to young families, and bring those better jobs here.” I think that's also a better message for young people to care about down-ballot races …When someone's running for Congress, they're talking about foreign policy – right now, Ukraine and Israel are top of those conversations – and those are vastly important issues for our nation. Still, when you want to talk about what's going to affect your day-to-day life in your backyard, it's going to be your local state House candidate who is fighting to make sure this item is tax-exempt, or bring a sweeping change of tax policy, or business owner who is looking for a little bit of relief. I think that is the message that resonates, and that's why we try to focus on getting people interested in those down-ballot races, as well.

Any closing thoughts on the importance of younger voters getting involved in the political process?

ED: I would just tell them that their voice and their effort is very powerful. It does not go unnoticed, and like I said before, this is our chance to demonstrate our values and to solidify a future that is truly going to be the best for us – protecting us, making sure we can have the safest and most prosperous future possible. Use your voice, and know that your actions are making a difference.

TK: If I didn't get involved as a campaign volunteer in high school and continue to volunteer through college and continue to be involved in politics in my local party, I wouldn't have a platform to be able to speak about issues that are important to young people. It’s suggested to a lot of young people: “Wait your turn, or you don’t have a seat at the table” – you just kind of have to build your own table when that's the case. For me, I got involved in my party in the Young Republicans and chaired our county Young Republicans, so when it came time to run at the state House, the party endorsed me over someone 30 years older than me with a lot more private sector experience because they knew me, they knew the kind of person I was, they knew my work ethic from being involved. Now I’ve got a platform to be the state Young Republicans chairman and go nationally as one of the few state reps at the national level in the Young Republicans to have a voice in driving policy and change. 

I think the most important thing is, look, if you want people to talk about and understand issues that young people face, you have to have young people that are involved. That doesn't mean young people who are able to have means to be involved or something. That just means, if you go hit the pavement, if you go get in and get hard work when the opportunities come, just step up and take it. I think that the biggest lesson for me is, if I hadn't taken this leap two years ago and put my life savings on the line and go all in after it, I wouldn't be able to be leading young people today. I think the moral of the story is, if you want people to listen and they don't, you don't see the table, sometimes you gotta build your own table. 

AH: I just always try to make sure in every conversation I have with people that I impress upon them the importance of the work that we’re doing if you really want to have a democracy. We have students who are living in communities that are very underserved, disenfranchised and they’re not being taught how the government works, how it relates to resources, jobs and all of those things that ultimately are important for us to have a good quality of life. They don’t learn those processes like many do in some of these other schools. They grow up in communities like Norristown and become adults who, because they’re not educated on a lot of this, they’re not participating, they’re not voting, they don’t know how to hold leaders accountable – and so that’s how you end up with this inequity that you see.