Will young voters turn Utah blue? These Aggies are skeptical

Armed with an Aggie-blue blazer, Democratic Senate candidate Caroline Gleich approached the line for Utah State’s famed mint ice cream with an ambitious goal: motivate college students to cast a ballot.

“Are you registered to vote?” Gleich asked the surprised queue of dessert-hungry undergrads gathered for “Day on the Quad” — the university’s largest fall gathering that includes hundreds of booths and activities for students.

Prepared with campaign stickers and the requisite paperwork to grow Utah’s electorate one student at a time, Gleich, age 38, launched into her pitch for why first-time voters at a rural school in conservative Utah should vote for her, a professional-skier-turned-environmental-activist, instead of Republican 3rd District Congressman John Curtis, in the race to replace Sen. Mitt Romney.

A recent Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found Gleich trailing Curtis by more than 30 percentage points. But Gleich’s hunch, she later told the Deseret News, is that the youngest voters in the youngest state in the nation are eager for an alternative to the GOP of Donald Trump.

Gleich first entered politics interning for former Gov. Gary Herbert’s environmental adviser as a student at the University of Utah. Now, she hopes her focus on the “climate crisis,” abortion access and housing costs will drive young Utahns to the polls.

“Right now, frankly, the Senate is overrepresented by older people, and we need to have more younger voices,” Gleich told the Deseret News editorial board last week, pointing out that the median age of the Senate is 65 ; Curtis is 64. “There’s a lot of young people especially that are disillusioned with the state of politics and ... the state of Congress.”

But while Utah’s Gen Z voting block appears to be following national trends of leaning more liberal than older generations, new Deseret News polling and interviews with USU students prove the difficulty of any Democratic path to victory that passes through Utah’s college campuses.

Young voters by the numbers

The Beehive State is home to some of the nation’s greatest “untapped potential of young voters,” according to Jacob Rugh, associate professor of sociology at Brigham Young University.

Through his own analyses of Utah voting trends , Rugh found that vote totals within a mile radius of college campuses in the state shifted to be more Democratic between 2016 and 2020. In 2020, Trump beat President Joe Biden in the state 58%-37.5%. But Trump was tied with Biden, 48%-47%, among those age 18-29, Rugh pointed out.

A recent Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll found that Utah voters ages 18-34 are more likely to be Democrats. More than one-third (34%) of this age group identified as members of the Democratic Party, compared to 22% of those ages 35-49, 19% of those 50-64 and 25% of those 65 and above.

The same trend was seen in terms of political ideology, with a plurality (37%) of those ages 18-34 identifying as liberal — while a plurality (31%) of those 35-49 identified as moderate, and pluralities of those ages 50-64, and 65 and above, identified as conservative.

Rugh attributed this trend partially to the fact that younger people generally lean more Democratic across the country.

However, the Deseret News poll found that many young Utah voters, including moderates and independents, are not turned away from the polls by Trump. If the presidential election were held today, 61% of Utah voters ages 18-34 said they would vote for Trump and 56% said they have a favorable view of him — both identical percentages to other age cohorts.

Regardless of whether young Utah voters are, or are not, fleeing the Republican Party, the data is clear on one thing, veteran GOP consultant Spencer Stokes said — young voters are more likely to ignore their ballot than turn it in.

“People in that age group haven’t historically shown up at the polls,” Stokes said. Though they have the numbers to “make a big difference,” relying on college-aged voters to get out the vote is “a difficult path to take” because it is such an undependable electoral demographic, Stokes said, particularly in a solidly Republican state like Utah where young voters might feel like their vote in presidential and down ballot races won’t make a difference.

USU students ‘unsatisfied’ with major party options

As Gleich mingled with students, showcasing her athleticism on a rock wall and trying her hand at roping a steer head, the Deseret News asked students whether they bought Gleich’s argument that their generation was on the verge of flipping Utah blue.

Riley May, a USU master’s student studying statistics, said he understands why a younger candidate for Senate like Gleich would be appealing to young voters who are tired of both major political parties electing septuagenarians and octogenarians to lead the Senate and White House .

“I think people just want something newer and fresher,” said May, who came to USU from Pocatello, Idaho.

May is undecided about the 2024 presidential election but said he won’t vote for Trump, who he called a “felon.” But May leans Republican and will vote for the Senate candidate who is most “fiscally conservative,” he said.

Crystal Moon, a self-described libertarian studying criminal justice, said she has noticed a lot of her peers moving toward the Democratic Party because it is “more woke.” But Moon said she and her friends are repelled by the Democratic Party for the same reason.

“We have strong traditional values, and we want to stay with that, with our traditional families, and all the progressiveness we feel is actually harming so we’re actually not hyped for a lot of our generation just blindly following whatever their friends say,” Moon said.

The Democratic Party has learned to use social media to influence the younger generation, while the Republican Party “is still doing rallies and old-fashioned stuff,” according to Moon, which might explain why the GOP appears less popular among voters her age.

Like May, Moon, a fellow Idaho native, is “very unsatisfied with both major parties” in the presidential election and said she will probably vote for a third-party candidate. Moon said she appreciates Curtis’ emphasis on nuclear energy innovation and wants lawmakers who are willing to pass internet safeguards for children.

Which party appeals more to young Utahns?

Jace Dart and Adam Hauber, lifelong friends from Paradise, Cache County, said the liberal lean of their online peers is misrepresentative of the “silent majority.” Dart, an accounting major, and Hauber, a marketing major, are proud Trump supporters who believe the former president enacted policies that strengthened the country economically and calmed tensions globally.

“I hardly know any Democrat voters my age,” Dart said. “I think that the left is very loud on the media which can make them appear larger. And so maybe our age needs to promote ourselves better.”

Hauber said he was raised not to rely on the government or expect handouts. The biggest problem with his generation, Hauber said, is they believe promises from Democratic politicians of free university education and free health care. He said he understands GOP policies that promote self-reliance might not motivate young voters like promises of college debt relief will.

“Republicans could do a better job communicating with younger people, but it’s harder,” Hauber said. “Because they don’t want to compromise their values by saying, ‘work hard, stuff doesn’t come for free,’ but they also want to get that age group for voting.”

Lisa and Rita Fuller said they have been alienated by the Republican Party and said they will likely vote for Gleich. The sisters said their upbringing in Ogden was “fairly progressive” compared to most of Utah and led them to see government as a way to overcome the social and economic problems their generation has inherited.

“The whole abortion kind of standpoint, women’s rights especially, and reproductive health, that type of stuff is probably some of the bigger ones for me. And then also kind of figuring out cost of living,” said Rita, who is studying veterinary medicine.

Lisa, who is studying physics, said young Utahns will be lucky if they can ever afford a home in the state. But “reproductive rights” is also “top of the list” for Lisa in a post-Roe v. Wade world. Like Gleich, the Fuller sisters see the biggest divide between themselves, and the political establishment, as generational.

“The age difference is definitely kind of where it diverges,” Lisa said.

The Gleich campaign said they have plans for voter registration events at each of Utah’s public universities in coming weeks. Gleich and Curtis will debate on Oct. 10. The general election is Nov. 5.