By Jim Ellis — Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Voting Trends
Former Vice President Kamala Harris / Photo by Gage Skidmore, Flickr
There was a great deal of discussion and analysis about the minority voting trends in the 2024 election, but significantly fewer assessments were published or aired pertaining to the changes in the youth vote.
Exit polling was providing some data, but now more reliable information from actual precinct voting totals is available for analysis.
The media reporters highlight exit polling on election nights, because the information is quickly obtained, and it provides them with filler information for the early post poll-closing hours.
The problem is exit that polling is not particularly accurate, because the sampling is not altogether random. The methodology is often flawed because the sample, which generally consists of in-person interviews at polling places and early voters contacted via telephone, is not systematically drawn. In exit polling, individuals typically volunteer to participate. This further skews the sampling universe because the participants are not wholly representative of the active electorate.
The Blue Rose Research entity, a Democratic survey research firm, released a report about the minority and age segmentation data based upon actual votes in statistically significant precincts. Their results, particularly in reference to the youth vote, are quite surprising and could further indicate that the electorate may be in the beginning phase of political realignment.
The Blue Rose report confirms that President Donald Trump performed better among minority voters than most other Republicans, particularly among Hispanic men, but his non-Hispanic White youth support figures are actually astonishing.
Within the White male 18-20 years of age segment, former Vice President Kamala Harris received only 28 percent support. The numbers from this particular study track only the percentage preference for Harris. While the Trump numbers are obviously higher than 28 percent, they are not likely at 72 percent since minor party candidates attracted some support.
The highest level of support for Harris among White men in the age segmentation comes both from those in the 36-38 age range and the 74-75 category. She reached approximately 42 percent support with both of these groups. A second low point for her, 31 percent, is found among those in the 58-60 age segment.
The pendulum swing charting the White female vote is almost identical to that of the male category, but the support numbers for Harris were uniformly higher. Still, she is generally underwater even within this female segment. The Harris highwater mark with White women is 51 percent found in the 27-29 age range. The low is 40 percent within the 57-59 age grouping.
Looking at minority voters, we see Trump’s improvement scores comparing his 2024 support performance to that from 2020. The President gained 12 percentage points among self-described moderate Hispanics and eight percent overall. Among Asians, his improvement percentage among the moderates was nine percent and six percent in the overall Asian grouping.
Despite much coverage of Trump’s stronger standing within the Black community, his strongest segment was only a plus two percent among self-described conservative Blacks, and just one percent overall. Comparing his 2016 Black support factor with 2024, we see a greater gap. Matched with his performance from eight years ago, Trump improved eight percentage points with conservative Blacks and an average of four percent within the entire Black voter cell sample.
Within the male People of Color category, the youngest voters perform best for President Trump. Here, the 18-20 age segment recorded only a 50 percent support factor for Harris. The male chart then continues upward until reaching an apex of 70 percent Harris support within the 74-75 year olds before tapering off a few points as the male People of Color voter segment moves into the 80s.
The female People of Color segments, across the board, are Harris’ strongest supporters with little variance. From the youngest to oldest voter segments, the female POC category performed between 72 and 80 percent favorable for Harris.
As we can see, the Trump campaign opened the conversion door for these traditionally Democratic racial and age voter population segments. It is now up to the GOP strategists to see if they can cement these types of numbers for future Republican candidates.