Poll: Donald Trump Closing In on Joe Biden with Young Voters

Former President Donald Trump is encroaching on President Joe Biden’s lead with young voters, a new Axios + Generation Lab Youth poll found.

Out of 1,073 U.S. adults surveyed between 18 and 34 years of age, 48 percent say they would vote for Trump, and 52 percent would vote for Biden “if the election were held today,” the poll found. The results may show Biden losing ground with younger voters, given that Gen Z and millennial voters favored Biden by 20 points in the 2020 presidential election, according to the Pew Research Center.

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“We don’t know enough yet,” Neil O’Brian, a political scientist at the University of Oregon, told Axios. “But this idea that young people are going to keep populating into the Democratic Party? There are some question marks around that.”

Biden’s lead is slightly stronger among respondents who say they are definitely planning on voting. Among the 42 percent of young participants who say they are absolutely going to vote in November, 63 percent say they would choose Biden.

Trump’s apparent increased popularity with younger voters also coincides with respondents ranking the economy as their top issue ahead of the election. Thirty-nine percent of young respondents say the economy matters to them most, followed by abortion at 16 percent, and student debt and immigration, both at 11 percent. Ten percent of young voters say climate change matters most, followed by guns at 7 percent.

The new poll follows a few other surveys that showed Trump narrowly leading Biden with young voters. In December, A New York Times/Siena poll showed Trump leading Biden by six points with voters under 30. An NBC News poll in November also showed Trump leading Biden by four points with voter voters under 35.

The Axios + Generation Lab Youth poll was conducted between February 3-14 and has a margin of error of ±3 percentage points.