Pod Save America - The Wilderness Chapter 4: Gen-Z Voters in Orange County

Are young voters the key to the midterms? We hear from disillusioned Gen-Z voters in Orange County, California as well as their Member of Congress, Katie Porter. Then Data For Progress’ Evangel Penumaka, organizer and former Texas Democratic Senate candidate Cristina Tzintzún-Ramirez, and John Della Volpe of Harvard Kennedy School join Jon to dig into what the voters had to say. New episodes of The Wilderness drop every Monday. Subscribe to The Wilderness wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple: apple.co/thewildernessSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6JfsJlD5sBhVpEQEALNw4UStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-wildernessIf you want to learn more about how you can take action in the fight for our democracy, head over to Vote Save America and Next Gen America: https://votesaveamerica.com/midterm-madness/https://nextgenamerica.org/

Duration: 48m
Broadcast on: 10 Oct 2022
Audio Format: other

Democrats like to point the finger at the Republicans and say those are the, you know, the old, the white, the rich, the dudes, right? And we are the diverse party. When it comes to age, I wouldn't point that finger so fast at the other side. Because we actually have a big problem with that in Congress. That's Katie Porter, a member of Congress from Orange County, California, talking about the Democratic Party's relationship with younger voters. It's not like the Democrats are, you know, running around on a burden with scooters and the Republicans are in those, I phone and I can't get up things. I mean, come on. Like, it's pretty much all old. I'm 48. I am in the future forum for young people. I'm not young. I've had Botox multiple times. I am not young. As you can tell, Congresswoman Porter is a bit different for most of her colleagues in the best possible way. She's funny. Doesn't take herself too seriously. Tox like a normal human being. And she's repeatedly gone viral for one of the most low tech forms of communication imaginable. A whiteboard. Do you know what this number is? This is Katie at a 2020 congressional hearing about drug companies price gouging. She's questioning big farmer CEO Mark Alice while using a dry race marker to write the number 13 million on a whiteboard. This was your compensation in 2017 for being CEO of Sel gene. And that's a lot of money. It's 200 times the average American's income and 360 times what the average senior gets on social security. In just a day, the C-SPAN clip of this grilling is viewed more than 15 million times on Twitter. And that's just one of many Katie Porter whiteboard moments that's broken through. Her most popular TikTok videos have up to 5 million views. And she's got over 150,000 followers on Instagram. Many of them as young as her three children. My children constantly tell me your stuff is so sus, which is short for suspicious. And so I'm like, I don't feel very hip because they're constantly telling me that I'm not. But when we looked at our social media accounts, whether it's TikTok, whether it's Instagram, even on Twitter, I have a lot of younger followers. It was a little bit of a puzzle to me. I mean, I do have a minivan like I'm not the coolest.

She must be doing something right. Katie Porter was probably the most progressive candidate to flip a Republican House seat in 2018, a race she won again in 2020. She's the first Democrat to ever represent California's 45th, a district which has become more diverse over the years with an electorate that's looking more like UC Irvine, the school where Katie used to teach law. In two close elections, young voters helped put her over the top. And that's been true for Democratic candidates all over the country. Between the 2014 and 2018 midterms, youth turnout more than doubled. And Democrats won more than two thirds of voters between the ages of 18 and 29. Massive turnout coast to coast. Generation Z did show up to the polls. We are seeing a surge of first time voters. Between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, youth turnout jumped from just under 40% to 50%. And Joe Biden won three fifths of these voters. Gen Z is now the most diverse generation in history. Nearly half are young people of color. And in a Gallup poll earlier this year, one out of every five identified as LGBTQ. There are now more young people registered to vote than ever before. And by 2028, Gen Z and millennials combined will make up just about half of all eligible voters in America. But that doesn't mean they'll always show up for Democrats or show up at all. Joe Biden actually did slightly worse with young voters in 2020 than Democrats did in 2018. And there are plenty of reasons for these voters to feel disconnected from politics right now. This is a generation that's come of age during multiple wars, the great recession, the Trump presidency, the pandemic, police brutality, climate change. It has been a brutal few decades. And a lot of young people have never had the experience of interacting with a government that actually cares about them. So when things go wrong in some of my senior's lives, they pick up the phone and they call my office. Some of them call almost every day. Some of them call once or twice. Young people, when things go wrong in their lives, they get frustrated. They lose confidence. And that's because for a long time in this area is a good example, there haven't been responsive representatives. Katie also recognizes that because the way

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