Contentious presidential election strikes cord with first-time voters

In six days, millions of Americans will head to voting booths.
While many national pundits have predicted voter turnout could be lower than 2012, some organizations are predicting a near record number of first time voters will cast ballots for President of the United States Nov. 8.

The Pew Research Center says more than 10 million people will vote for president for the first time this year. While not all of those rookies are recently-turned 18 year olds, many are.

The constant media cycling of this election has created record interest among young voters who can’t avoid the election whether it be SnapChat, Facebook or Twitter – this election is everywhere. Whether that translates into young votes remains to be seen.

What is clear is that the all important youth vote could be the lynch pin for either Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump on Election Day – in mass voting or simply by sitting this election out. Both candidates have stumped for millennials on the election trail but neither has seemed to snag the popular appeal of President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 or even former Democrat candidate Bernie Sanders.

Voting, studies have shown, is something that becomes habitual if started young. And like most any form of the educational process, engagement is key. Often that routine begins in the most mundane of places: the high school government class.

“I think the sooner kids can become engaged in the political process, that speaks to the larger society, it’s part of who we are as a nation,” said Maria Jacobus, an American Government teacher at Glenwood Community High School. “To be engaged, to be involved and be informed, these are decisions that aren’t just made at the national level, I would argue they are just as important at the state level and affect us on a daily basis.”

Connecting the dots between the “vote” and the “policy” most close to that voter or the one issue that impacts the young voter is what Jacobus hopes to disseminate in the lectures and the activities and the discourse she encourages in her classroom.

“Sitting in a classroom, students are affected by public policy, which is driven by public opinion, which is driven by the political parties and the special interest groups,” Jacobus said. “They have to start weeding those things out somewhere.”

According to TargetSmart, a political data firm, America surpassed 200 million voters for the first time this year. That’s 50 million more registered voters than just eight years ago. But engagement among young voters hasn’t always been so rosy. The U.S. Census Bureau found that less than 40 percent of voters age 18 to 24 – those notoriously fickle millennials – voted in 2012, just four years after that number topped 50 percent in Obama’s first election. By contrast, American’s over 65 voted at nearly a 60 percent rate.

Creating conscious, tuned in voters isn’t a pre-requisite to passing Jacobus’ class but following the election, the candidates and the issues in her senior level government class has been a popular talking and teaching point all fall. The constant news cycling of Clinton and Trump’s historically long and strange presidential race has made her lesson plan both topical and entertaining.

“You’re able to use real time, real life examples for different topics and issues you’re discussing in class,” said Jacobus, who re-arranged some of her larger class topics last spring to coincide with the Iowa Caucuses just as she moved general election discussion to this fall.

Jacobus also had Mills County Auditor Carol Robertson in her class last month to discuss the election process and register eligible students. Just recently her students were assigned to look over generalized statements that were either  liberal or conservative and then figure out where they fell, generally speaking, on the political spectrum.

Steve Raymond, who covers the election in both his senior-level Current Events class and his middle school Civics curriculum at Fremont-Mills Community School, offered a similar lesson. Raymond directed students to a website called isidewith.com where they were asked to answer a survey about where they fall on particular issues and when completed, the site matches the student with a candidate.

“It’s kind of interesting to see people that are pro-Donald Trump but their political views may line up better with Hillary Clinton,” he said. “It’s something that our students have really enjoyed and gotten into. It allows them to understand what some of the policies are that affect our country.”

Jacobus’ and Raymond’s students also participated in the Election 101 “Iowa Youth Straw Poll” conducted by the Iowa Secretary of State last week.

Both teachers agree this presidential election season has been unlike anything they’ve seen in their years teaching – in both media coverage and student interest.

Candace Finn is a Glenwood senior. She’s a registered Independent and still undecided on who she’ll vote for but is leaning toward Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. When asked what she thought of the election this year, Finn laughed and said,  “It’s crazy.”
“It’s unfortunate this is our first vote because so many people are like ‘This is the most corrupt race we’ve ever had,’” Finn went on. “It’s rough going into that your first time not knowing anything different. But it does give you an excuse to actually research the candidates and find out what would be best for you instead of just going by how they are in interviews and more on their personality than their policies. It makes you look at that because you want to make a good choice.”

Raymond said that’s a common refrain he’s heard from his students, but the interest is there for the elections, even if he’s isn’t sure “excitement” is the right word to describe that sentiment. He used words like “curiosity” about the election itself and even “disappointment” in the candidate options to describe his students’ interest level.

“I try to stay as non-partisan and open to the process,” Raymond said. “I want to stay out of it and never  steer any student one way or another but it’s pretty black and white with the students who they follow and who they would vote for in my classes.”

Jacobus also deliberately avoids discussing her own candidate leanings in the classroom. Discourse, she said, is best served by open, level-headed dialogue.

Jordan Morrical, a Fremont-Mills High School senior who will vote for the first time Nov. 8, said she plans to vote for Donald Trump. She  has watched the election season unfold, mostly on social media, and she hasn’t liked what she’s seen.

“It’s been pretty horrible,“ said Morrical, 18. “These two presidential candidates aren’t very nice to each other. And it’s probably the first time two presidential candidates haven’t shook hands in a debate.”

Both Jacobus and Raymond said the feelings of Morrical and Finn are as much about issue connectivity as candidate connectivity. Young voters aren’t much different than any other voter, they want to know “How does this impact me?” It is the No. 1 question that encourages voting and, ironically, also discourages voting.

“Traditionally, young people look at the issues being discussed and if they don’t see anything that speaks directly to them and where they’re at, the concerns and problems they have, or candidates that relate to them on a personal level, they tend not to have the interest or engagement,” Jacobus said.

Raymond said youth voter “apathy” is often thrown around as a contributing factor in low youth voter turnout but he’s not buying that.

“There’s so much information out there about each candidate,” Raymond said. “Anyone can find out anything and that information can change anyone’s mind. The problem I hear from our voter eligible students (this year) is they don’t believe in voting for the lesser of two evils. They simply feel like the quality of candidates this election is poor. I hear them in class. I think they’re more knowledgeable about the candidates than people realize. That’s what you hope for.”

Morrical couldn’t pinpoint an issue that concerns her most and while she said she’s seen the support for the candidates divided along gender lines among her peers, she’s supported Trump from the beginning.

“Our class is pretty divided among Hillary and Trump,” she said. “It’s been a little heated at times. The majority of the women are for Hilary and the majority of the men are for Trump.”

Since the 1990s, Jacobus has seen a steady increase among the political parties to reach out to young voters in hopes of stemming the decline among those valuable 18-24 demographics. Social media continues to drive young voters today in a crowded media market of info-tainment, tweets and memes swirling with hard news.

“I was  one of those young voters in the ‘90s and you saw different ads and political groups  trying to get young people to vote. MTV had the ‘Get the Vote Out’ campaign and other efforts to engage,” Jacobus said. “There has been movement and I think there is recognition that young people are a significant chunk of the electorate that needs to be engaged and involved in the process. I will always argue you can’t do enough to get young people involved in the process.”