UMKC Political Science professor talks about the impact of Gen Z vote

As the 2024 election gets closer, the role of Generation Z shaping the political landscape is becoming significant.

Debra Leiter is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri - Kansas City.

When it comes to social media impact, she shared how much political leaders, parties and movements are targeting the young voters, through social media platforms, like Tik Tok.

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Vice President Kamala Harris recently joined Tik Tok on Thursday as the presidential campaign is underway. Former President, Donald Trump joined earlier this summer.

Leiter says while youth voter turnout tends to be lower than older voters, Gen X turned out at a higher rate than any other young voter.

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"In fact, in 2020 Gen Z turned out about 48%, which is one of the highest rates of turnout for U.S. voters in a national election," Leiter said. "In Kansas and Missouri, it was about 45% and 46% of young voters turned out to vote in 2020 . And we think 2024 is going to be a close election. All signs point to this being a neck and neck race. And certainly every vote matters and young voters have made a difference in a number of close elections in 2020, so we expect 2024 to be a similar story."

She says there are a number of factors and issues Gen Z looks at, including the age of candidates.

"Students are generally really concerned about the upcoming election. Prior to the announcement of Joe Biden stepping down, there was a lot of discontent about the age of the candidates seeing a big gap in themselves at 19/20 years old," Leiter said. "And prior to Harris being the presumptive nominee, the two oldest candidates we've ever seen running for office, a lot of students felt like there was a major gap not just in a age, but in priorities and the things that mattered to them."

Leiter says in many ways we're seeing two really important and different visions of what the American political system is and Gen Z is going to play a role in directing that future.

"Gen Z has had a lot to vote on in the short period of time that they have been eligible to vote; the COVID election in 2020, and 2024 being a chance for them to set the direction of both Republican and Democratic Party," Leiter said. "Gen Z does care a lot about the future and concerns about the future issues of the environment, issues of economic opportunity, whether they're gonna be able to get good jobs in the future, whether they're gonna be able to afford houses. Those are things that come up for Gen Z quite a bit."

She says some of the conversations she has with her students, is diving into what's at stake in this election and how they can have an influence, not just on the national front, but on the local level as well.

"While the top of the ballot really matters, these local elections, the state elections, these congressional elections have a profound impact on politics and especially day to day politics. And I think it's important as we have these conversations with students, to understand how the local affects the national, the national affects international and how the international affects the local," Leiter said. "Politics is everywhere to fix everything that we do day to day. If you have a young voter who loves sports, talk about the stadium decision, and how political decisions impact whether the chiefs in the Royals are going to be here in Missouri, move over to Kansas or somewhere else. Talk about the things that they care about the environment or economic decisions and how much that is affected the local level. Every pothole is a political story because the decision about how our roads get fixed, how they get funded, all of those things are decided at the local level. So the key thing to have conversation was with younger voters is to talk about how politics affects the things that matter to them, because it certainly does."

She highly encourages young voters to get involved in politics and volunteer.

"You can volunteer at the campaign's for the top of the ballot tickets, and that's great, and that's a wonderful way of helping to get out the vote," Leiter said. "You can volunteer to be a 'Get out the Vote' person, but one of the best ways that a young person can help make a major change is to volunteer for one of those local races: City Council, State Legislature."

She says these efforts are not only going to be appreciated when it comes to volunteering in local races, but it could make a sizable difference to shape the politics in the local community.

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