If you had told me two years ago that Hillary Clinton was getting just 43 percent of the vote among voters under age 30, I would have said that the Republican nominee must be in great shape:
In the new Journal/NBC News poll, conducted Oct. 10-13, Mrs. Clinton led Mr. Trump among 18- to 29-year-old likely voters by 13 percentage points, 43% to 30%. That’s narrower than Mr. Obama’s 23-point margin over GOP nominee Mitt Romney with that age group in 2012.
In 2012, Mr. Obama relied heavily on college towns in the battleground states he won.
He captured the vote in 32 of 40 college-town counties in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to the county typology of the American Communities Project. In those counties, Mr. Obama captured 58% of the vote, compared with 52% in those states overall.
As is, this is pretty good news for Trump, but a testament to Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and perhaps Evan McMullin. There’s also a good chance that turnout in this demographic is lower than 2012. Given a menu of options they don’t like, younger voters may just opt to stay home.