As of this writing (November 9), we estimate that 23.7 million young voters participated in the 2016 presidential election, a 50% voter turnout of citizens aged 18-29 in the United States.

By another measure of youth participation, youth vote share (the proportion of all votes cast by young people) in a majority of the 28 states where exit polls were conducted youth made up an equal or larger share of the electorate than senior citizens: higher in 14 states, and tied in three.Nationally, young voters aged 18-29 cast 19% of all votes in the 2016 presidential election, which is the same as the youth share of voters in 2012.Our pre-election poll of Millennials ages 18-34 had Clinton 49% vs. Trump 28%, a 21-point preference for the Democratic candidate. In 2016, however, we estimate that  young White men cast 1 million more votes than in 2012: from 6.8 million to 7.8 million. However, it’s worth noting that young African Americans were notably less likely to support Clinton in 2016 (83%) than Obama in 2012 (91%).Our analysis of margin of victory in relation to estimated youth turnout and choice revealed that young voters played an important role in keeping some key races very close. In general, voting rates from the sample surveys such as the Current Population Survey are higher than official results. In comparison to 2012, younger non-Hispanic whites between the ages of 18 to 29 and between the ages of 30 to 44 reported higher turnout in 2016, while voting rates for the two oldest groups of non-Hispanic whites were not statistically different (Figure 5). For one, President Obama’s first campaign in 2008 mobilized then-college students and young Millennials who may have become committed voters once they completed their studies. Potential explanations for this difference include item nonresponse, vote misreporting, problems with memory or knowledge of others’ voting behavior, and methodological issues related to question wording and survey administration.

This year, we recorded the lowest share of youth without any college experience  in the past four elections, and a nearly 10-point drop from 2012. If it were not for young voters’ support for Hillary Clinton, electoral college votes in Michigan, New Hampshire, and Nevada would have gone more decisively to Donald Trump. Figure 1 presents voting rates for the citizen voting-age population for each presidential election since 1980. However, in 2016, young voters ages 18 to 29 were the only age group to report increased turnout compared to 2012, with a reported turnout increase of 1.1 percent. In fact, it appears to have under-mobilized those who have never gone to college in this election; they made up less than 20% of the youth electorate even though there are twice as many “non-college youth” in the general population.The electoral overrepresentation of youth with higher levels of formal education has been an enduring pattern. This year, they made up just 24% in 2016, while the share of all other gender/education segments of the White youth electorate has gone up.The most dramatic shift was the increase in the share of young White women with college degrees, who made up just 19% of all young White voters in  2008, but this year equaled young women without college degrees at 24%. It’s the third highest share of the youth vote for Democrats since 1972. Table 1 shows changes in both the number of reported voters and the citizen voting-age population between 2012 and 2016. Despite these issues, the Census Bureau’s November supplement to the Current Population Survey remains the most comprehensive data source available for examining the social and demographic composition of the electorate in federal elections, particularly when examining broad historical trends for subpopulations.In election years, the Current Population Survey collects data on reported voting and registration, and later reports stats by turnout, age, race and origin.To sign up for updates please enter your contact information below.Measuring America's People, Places, and Economy,Written by: Thom File, Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division,Voting in America: A Look at the 2016 Presidential Election,Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP),Measuring the Impact of Tourism to Local Areas,Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting,Associate Director for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer,Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer,Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) Program,Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI),Small Area Health Insurance Estimates (SAHIE),Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE),Survey of Market Absorption of New Multifamily Units (SOMA). From 1980 to 2015, Canada’s youngest voters turned out for federal general elections in numbers well below the turnout rate for all other demographic groups.