Youth turnout dropped from 55% in 2020 to 42% 2024. This  comes in spite of many organizations encouraging turnout amongst younger voters. One of these organizations is rock the vote who as stated by the club leader at tampa prep Emily Six “ The main purpose of the rock the vote club is to allow young people to become educated and to encourage them to civically participate.” however voter turnout dropped by 13%. Moreover, the 2020 election had taken place over a global pandemic. Meaning that this drop off may actually be more severe. 

we asked what may have caused this she said “I think the reason for the decrease in voter turnout can be attributed to the extreme political polarization the country has experienced within the last election cycle. Politics became a weapon and affected personal and familial relationships. ” this could also be explained by boths candidates unfavorability as according to CNN 52% of voters had an unfavorable opinion of Kamala Harris and 53% had an unfavorable view of trump. With these numbers voters were non-enthusiastic as this becomes an election where voters picked the least bad option rather than the option there more excited for. 

As for how to improve the situation Emily Six said “ it is vital to focus on the goal of bettering the country, rather than the differing ideas of ways to do that. If we, as American citizens, focus on bettering one another and supporting America, in the end it won’t matter what political facilitation someone is; in turn, hopefully motivating people to vote.” 

There is a lot that goes into why voter turnout dropped. The sooner we start to understand why voter turnout, whether it be candidate quality or polarization, the sooner we as a country will rebound and surge into a better future.