October 31, 2018
Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice
Voting machines at a polling location in the dining room of The Gold Standard Cafe on Baltimore Ave. in West Philadelphia on Tuesday, May 15, 2018.
About half of millennials surveyed in a recent poll said they would definitely or probably vote in next week's midterm elections, according to a recent survey conducted by NBC News and GenForward.
If history is any indicator of what midterm results may show, millennial votes are hard to secure. The survey also reported 19 percent of millennials would probably not or definitely not vote in this year's election.
The survey was conducted from the end of September through early October and polled 1,881 millennials, ages 18 to 34.
Among those individuals planning to go to the polls, the survey asked which issues were most important in their decisions about whom they'd be voting for in U.S. Congress races. A majority of African American millennials said they would vote based on racism as a social issue; Asian Americans and Latinos noted immigration was their key issue; and white voters cited health care.
Notably, the majority of all millennials in each racial demographic said they thought things in the United States were "off on the wrong track" — but when asked about the nation's economy, reporting was more skewed. Most individuals said they thought the state of the economy as either "somewhat good," "neither good nor poor," or "somewhat poor."
The findings show that while most of the people polled want candidates who can bring about change, they are most interested in certain values.
And most of them aren't following political news regarding the midterms. In fact, less than 40 percent have a great deal of interest in following the election. A startling 59 percent said they are not familiar with the candidates in their congressional districts.
Don't know who's running for Congress in your district? To see the candidates that will appear on your ballot, check out Vote411's site. It requires you input your address and then will show you what your ballot will look like on Election Day (Tuesday, Nov. 6).
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