American gen Z voters share how they feel about Kamala Harris’s presidential bid, why they like or dislike her as a candidate and whether they think she could beat Donald Trump, as the vice-president races towards winning the Democratic nomination for November’s election.
‘I think she’s just what we need’
“I think [Kamala Harris] is the only one that makes sense. She will get the votes Biden couldn’t. She could get the Black, Asian, Latino, women’s, LGBTQ+ and youth votes. She stands more for progress and equality than an old white dude and if she wins it will be historic. The Democrats need a bold move and I think she’s just what we need.
“I hope the Democrats realize what an opportunity this is for them.” Will, 22, construction worker from Portland, Oregon
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Turnout has varied enormously over the last twenty years. Conservatives are riding the same waves as the rest of us. A lot of that is built into home ownership. We’re seeing a more migrant population that needs to constantly re-register and re-engage with the local political establishment after every change of address. Republicans are no longer the home-owning majority, now that the college demographic has shifted over to the liberal side of the spectrum. And Democrats are no longer the freshly migrant urbanites of the post Jim Crow era, fleeing the brutality of the Dixiecrat states.
Dems have eclipsed Republicans on voter registration, they consistently out-compete on turnout, and they’ve had a number of wave elections in off-years precisely because they’re more consistent at voting than their Republican peers.
No. Gerrymandering, vote caging, and strategic disenfranchisement at the county and state level are why small minorities are able to run roughshod over the interests of the majority. States like Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas have absolutely batshit insane maps, with a handful of districts packed to the gills full of liberal voters while conservatives are spread thinly across the remainder. Wisconsin just broke the GOP gerrymander that’s kept the state legislature locked firmly red with barely 40% of the popular vote.
That’s been a clever stopgap against popular governance in the short term, but its also a dangerous game when a suburban cohort shifts or defects on razor thin margins.
When Dem wave years happen, you can see thousands of seats flip overnight. But without that supermajority of voters, you’ll see those same seats collapse red again. That was the story of 2008 -> 2010 and 2016 -> 2018 -> 2020. Suddenly influxes of Democrats would appear for a cycle only to get obliterated in time for Republicans to recement their gerrymanders.
Consequently, the Republican strategy has been to run out the clock on incoming Dem administrations, confident that they’ll be back in control as soon as the wave passes. Democrat strategy has been to… fuck around for the two years they have a significant majority and then bitch at voters when the moment passes.