Young Republican and Democratic voters don’t agree on much. But college students outside of former President Donald Trump’s rally at the University of New Hampshire Saturday found common ground on at least one thing – they’re unhappy with President Joe Biden.
“He’s got to go,” Katelyn Bellemare, a 19-year-old self-described right-leaning independent, said. Bellemare isn’t sure yet who she’ll vote for in the 2024 primary or general election, but she knows it won’t be the current president.
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“He hasn’t done any good for this country,” the Rochester, Mass. native studying psychology at UNH, said, noting Biden’s handling of the economy and foreign policy as key deterrents.
Hours later, inside the Whittemore Center Arena, Trump attempted to capitalize on the discontent expressed by voters like Bellemare during a wide-ranging speech that mostly focused on his economic agenda.
“Were you better off five years ago or are you better off today?” the Republican frontrunner asked the crowd of thousands, including many college-age students finishing out their last few days on campus before winter break. “Not one thing has gotten better under crooked Joe Biden.”
With less than a month to go until voting starts in the GOP primary, Trump is dominating his Republican competitors in every national and state poll. And other than several brief mentions of his primary opponents, the ex-president appeared more focused in his speech on a general election match up against Biden.
If Trump manages to win his party’s nomination, young voters like those present Saturday could be crucial for him next November. Recent national polls have shown Biden losing momentum with the key voting bloc that helped propel him to the presidency in 2020.
A Harvard Institute of Politics poll published in early December found Biden only slightly ahead of Trump among voters who are 18 to 29.
He held a lead of just 4% – a major drop from 2020 when a similar poll showed him winning the same group by 23%. Another survey published by NBC News in November found Trump leading among voters ages 18-34 by 46% to 42%.
Young voters present at Trump’s rally Saturday cited economic concerns as a major reason they’re backing the businessman. David Montenegro, a 22-year-old hailing from Providence, R.I., said most of his friends are planning to vote with their pocketbook in 2024.
“A lot of students are going for internships, are going for jobs. They’re not getting the jobs they want and they feel it is a result of the overall direction of the Biden administration,” said Montenegro, who is studying business at Babson College in Massachusetts. “They want the economy to recover.”
The Biden administration has largely touted its economic agenda as a success, highlighting a near 50-year-low unemployment rate, a growing jobs market, and an annual inflation rate that, according to the Consumer Price Index, is down to 3.1% from a high of 9.1% in June 2022.
But few Americans have said they approve of Biden’s handling of the economy. Over two-thirds of young voters in the Harvard poll rated the economy as “fairly bad” or “very bad.” Among young voters who said the economy was among their top concerns in 2024, a majority said inflation and the cost of living were the main issues.
Even students protesting Trump’s visit to campus highlighted the economy as a top-of-mind issue in 2024. Lizzy Mower, 20, stood across the street from the Whittemore Center Saturday with a group of students several dozen strong, holding up signs and chanting objections to the president’s visit.
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Although they are a Democrat, the Goffstown native doesn’t love the idea of voting for Biden. “I would hope with all of my heart that it is someone else,” Mower, who is studying wildlife conservation at UNH, said, adding that Biden is not progressive enough for her taste.
And while they don’t necessarily blame Biden for the economy, Mower said housing and rent prices are weighing heavily on them this election, noting that “the cost of everything is way higher.”
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