Youth vote key for Biden as abortion rights and pro-student policies lift president in midterms

Support from the young and women particularly prominent in Democrat victories as party holds off predicted 'red wave'

Democrat supporters of John Fetterman
Democrat supporters of John Fetterman cheer after his victory over TV doctor Mehmet Oz Credit: Shutterstock

Young voters fired up over threats to abortion access helped Joe Biden's Democrats fight off a Republican "red wave" in the battle for control of Congress.

Democrats flipped a key Senate seat in Pennsylvania and appeared to be fending off GOP challenges in at least two other critical battlegrounds.

Republicans were poised to take the House of Representatives, but the party's early boasts of a landslide majority failed to materialise.

The results are a major relief for Mr Biden, who defied historical norms for midterm elections despite persistent inflation, rising crime rates and abysmal approval ratings.  

Jubilant White House aides said the results had bolstered Mr Biden's re-election plans. “He’s running,” one senior official said.

The impressive Democratic performance was captured by Mayra Flores, the defeated Republican candidate in Texas, who tweeted: “The red wave did not happen. Republicans and Independents stayed home. Do not complain about the results if you did not take part!”

The loss of just one chamber of Congress will still deliver a significant check on Mr Biden's mandate for the next two years.

But the president's party avoided crushing defeat in part thanks to young voters and women, who ranked abortion rights high on their priority list.

Mr Biden’s student loan forgiveness plans also likely invigorated young voters to turn out for his party.

One in every eight voters were under 30 and they backed Democratic candidates by wide margins, according to early exit polling and AP.

Americans aged 30 to 44 made up a little over two in 10 voters, and about half of them supported Democratic candidates.
The majority of voters were 45 and older, and most of them supported Republicans.

The surge among young voters was particularly evident in Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman pulled off a stunning victory against Republican Mehmet Oz, flipping the only senate seat in the contest as of Wednesday night. 

Exit polling suggests young voters were critical to his success. The Democrat was backed by 72 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds, significantly more than the 59 per cent that backed Mr Biden in the 2020 presidential race, according to CNN's exit poll.

Likewise, Democrats saw off a strong challenge to their New Hampshire Senate with a surge in support from Gen-Z voters. Around 76 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds backed incumbent Maggie Hassan, compared with just 50 per cent backing Democrats two years prior, according to CNN exit polling.

It helped Ms Hassan fend off Republican candidate Don Bolduc, an anti-abortionist who fellow Republicans had branded a “conspiracy theory extremist”.

Two critical Senate races, Arizona and Nevada were too close to call on Wednesday night. In Nevada, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the first Latina senator in history, trailed Republican Adam Laxalt with 20 per cent of votes still to count.

Democrat Mark Kelly had a five-point lead over Republican Blake Masters in Arizona but 400,000 votes were yet to be counted.

If those projections hold, control of the US Senate will likely come down to Georgia, where the race between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will continue to a December runoff.  

Mr Warnock, the incumbent, was one point ahead of Mr Walker but had failed to secure the 50 per cent required to declare victory.

Democrats saw a boost in support among under 30s in all three critical states.

Gen-Z now in Congress

This year's midterm elections also featured the first Gen-Z member of Congress to be elected. Maxwell Frost, aged 25, will represent Florida’s 10th district in the House.

His background is in activism, including collaborating with the student-led anti-gun-violence movement March for Our Lives, beginning after the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.

“I come from a generation that has gone through more mass-shooting drills than fire drills,” he told the New York Times. “This is something that my generation has had to face head-on: being scared to go to school, being scared to go to church, being scared to be in your community. That gives me a sense of urgency.”

Mr Frost’s win will lower Congress's median age, which currently sits at its highest in two decades, by a significant margin. 

The upswell in Democratic support among young voters was driven by abortion ballot measures in a number of critical states.

A proposal to enshrine abortion protections in Michigan's constitution drove high turnout in the state's college districts. Similar measures were approved in California and Vermont.

Notably, Republican-controlled Kentucky and Montana also turned aside anti-abortion measures.

Almost a third of voters ranked abortion as their biggest vote driver, very closely behind inflation, in one exit poll.

The issue also energised female voters, with women voting for Mr Fetterman by a double-digit margin against Dr Oz, who pushed an anti-abortion agenda.

However, Republicans did claim some big Democratic scalps. They included New York congressman Patrick Maloney, chairman of the party's campaign arm.

Elaine Luria, a high-profile Democratic member of the January 6 Committee, lost her Virginia district to Republican Jen Kiggans.

But the results overall were an unwelcome surprise to Republican leaders in Washington, who watched the vote tallies in largely empty staged hotel ballrooms in the capital.

The Democratic House leadership, by contrast, had not planned any election night event.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, declared on Wednesday that Democratic candidates for the chamber were “strongly outperforming expectations across the country”.

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