August 24, 2016 The Skanner Page 9
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Divided America: Diverse Millennials Are No Voting Monolith
Gillian Flaccus, Tamara
Lush and Martha Irvine
Associated Press
T
he oldest millen-
nials — nearing
20 when airplanes
slammed into New
York City’s Twin Tow-
ers — are old enough to
remember the relative
economic
prosperity
of the 1990s, and when
a diferent Clinton was
running for president.
The nation’s youngest
adults — now nearing 20
themselves — ind it hard
to recall a reality without
terrorism and economic
worry.
Now millennials have
edged out baby boomers
as the largest living gen-
eration in U.S. history,
and more than 75 million
of them have come of age.
How they vote on Nov. 8
will shape the political
landscape for years to
come. Yet with less than
three months to go be-
fore Election Day, the val-
ues of young Americans
whose coming-of-age was
bookended by the Sept.
11, 2001, terrorist attacks
and the Great Recession
are emerging as an un-
predictable grab bag of
iscal conservatism and
social liberalism.
What they share is a
palpable sense of disillu-
sionment.
As part of its Divid-
ed America series, The
Associated Press spent
time with seven millen-
nial voters in ive states
where the oldest and
largest swath of this gen-
eration — ages 18 to 35,
as deined by the Pew
Research Center — could
have an outsized inlu-
ence in November. They
are a uniquely Ameri-
can mosaic, from a black
teen in Nevada voting for
the irst time to a Flor-
ida-born son of Latino
immigrants to a white
Christian couple in Ohio.
Taken
individually,
these voters illustrate
how millennials are chal-
lenging pollsters’ expec-
tations based on race,
class and background in
surprising ways, react-
ing to what they see as
the loss of the American
Dream. They are intent
on shaping something
new and important that
relects their reality —
on their own terms.
“Millennials have been
described as apathetic,
but they’re absolutely
not. I think you can see
from this election year
that they’re not, and that
millennials have a very
nuanced understanding
of the political world,”
said Diana Downard, a
26-year-old Bernie Sand-
ers supporter who will
vote for Hillary Clinton.
“So yeah, I’m proud to be
a millennial.”
Just 5 percent of young
adults say that America
is “greater than it has
ever been,” while 52 per-
cent feel the nation is
“falling behind” and 24
percent believe the U.S.
is “failing,” according to
a GenForward poll re-
leased last month. The
irst-of-its kind survey
of young people between
the ages of 18 and 30 was
conducted by the Black
Youth Project at the Uni-
versity of Chicago with
the Associated Press-
NORC Center for Public
Afairs Research.
Fity-four percent be-
lieve only a few people at
the top can get ahead in
today’s America, and 74
percent say income and
wealth distribution are
uneven, according to the
poll.
Briana Lawrence, a
21-year-old
videogra-
pher and eyelash artist
from Durham, North
“
and really, now, we’re
kind of just paralyzed by
our student debt,” said
Downard, who works
for a nonpartisan orga-
nization that works to
improve youth voter reg-
istration. “You can’t even
think about those sorts
of alternative options.”
In part because of these
economic pressures, a
2014 Pew Research Cen-
ter poll found that — for
the irst time in more
than 130 years — adults
ages 18 to 34 were slight-
ly more likely to be living
with their parents than
with a spouse or partner
in their own residence.
And one in four millen-
nials say they might not
ever marry, a Pew survey
found.
Only 8 percent of
young adults feel their
household’s inancial sit-
uation is “very good,” and
education and economic
growth ranked No. 1 and
No. 2 as the issues that
will most inluence their
vote, according to the
AP PHOTO/GERRY BROOME
Younger voters share a sense of disillusionment, but little else, pollsters say
Briana Lawrence, 21, adjusts a camera in a studio at North Carolina Central University in Durham, N.C.,
on Thursday, July 14, 2016. She was just 7 on Sept. 11, 2001 and the immediate aftermath of the terrorist
attacks is the only time she can remember the nation feeling united, even if only by grief.
Tillett, who graduated
this spring from a high
school just miles from
the Las Vegas Strip.
Tillett, who turned 18
in July, was 10 when the
recession hit and sucked
the wind out of his fam-
ily. His mother, a single
parent, was in a car ac-
“Millennials have been described as apathet-
ic, but they’re absolutely not. I think you can
see from this election year that they’re not, and
that millennials have a very nuanced under-
standing of the political world”
Carolina, identiies with
those numbers.
She was just 7 on Sept.
11 and the immediate af-
termath of the terrorist
attacks is the only time
she can remember the
nation feeling united,
even if only by grief.
With $40,000 in student
debt, she’s working hard
to establish her own
cosmetic business ater
graduating from North
Carolina Central Univer-
sity. She plans to vote for
Hillary Clinton, but feels
America has lost its way.
“My biggest hope for
this country is for us to
come back together as a
community. As a Unit-
ed States of America, to
unite together again,”
she said.
But millennials know
that getting to that place
won’t be easy. Many, like
Lawrence, are saddled
with college debt and
have struggled to ind
jobs.
In Denver, 1,600 miles
to the west, Downard
also has almost $40,000
in student debt that’s al-
ready changed her path.
A dual U.S. and Mexican
citizen, she feels she can’t
aford to work for an
overseas organization —
one of her dreams — and
plans to delay having a
family at least 10 years.
“We went to college in
pursuit of a better life
GenForward poll.
“We might be in a ‘good-
ish’ inance situation
right now as a country,
but I was always taught
there’s ups and downs
in the inance world and
with every up, there’s a
down. So we should be
preparing for that down
to come,” said Brien
cident that hospitalized
her for three months
and, with no safety net,
the family struggled.
“It was to the point
where I would not ask my
mother to go hang out
with my friends because
I didn’t want her to wor-
ry about money,” said
Tillett, whose brush with
insolvency has deeply in-
luenced his views.
The national debt is his
No. 1 concern.
As a young black man,
he’s turned of by re-
marks by Donald Trump
that he inds racist and
xenophobic, but likes
Trump’s
aggressive
stance on the economy.
“We’re trillions of dollars
in debt and that should
not be happening,” said
Tillett, who started run-
ning track at a two-year
college this month.
He strongly considered
voting for Trump, but
will now vote for Clinton
because Trump has be-
come “a loose cannon” in
recent weeks. Still, he’s
angry about Clinton’s
use of a private email
server when she was Sec-
retary of State. “We have
to basically question if
we can truly trust her
with all of our nation’s
secrets,” he said.
Anibal David Cabrera
was in high school when
Tillett was just a small
boy — but he’s part of the
same generation.
The son of a Honduran
mother and Dominican
father, he graduated
from college in 2008 as
the recession was pick-
ing up steam. A inance
major, he wanted to
work for a hedge fund or
bank, but the economic
collapse meant jobs had
dried up. Eventually
Cabrera, now 31 and liv-
ing in Tampa, Florida,
got an accounting job at a
small tech irm.
He feels he’s entering
the prime of his life a few
steps behind where he
could have been, through
no fault of his own.
A Jeb Bush die-hard in
the primaries, he’s now
supporting Trump and
hopes the business mo-
gul can make good on his
promises.
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