In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • The Millennial Vote in the 2016 Democratic Primary Elections
  • Fred M. Shelley (bio) and Ashley M. Hitt (bio)

introduction and background

In the spring of 2016, Democratic Party voters began the process of selecting their party’s nominee for President to succeed Barack Obama. During 2015, five candidates began campaigning for the Democratic nomination, including former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of New York, former Governors Martin O’Malley of Maryland and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, former Senator James Webb of Virginia, and Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont. Chafee, Webb, and O’Malley generated very little enthusiasm and soon dropped out. By late 2015, it had become clear that Sanders would become Clinton’s primary challenger.

Many journalists and observers regarded Sanders, who was 74 years old, a self-described democratic socialist, and not even a formal member of the Democratic Party for most of his career, as an unlikely challenger to Clinton. Clinton had been a well-known public figure for more than two decades, including eight years as First Lady, eight years as a Senator, and four years as Secretary of State. Sanders has served in Congress for 25 years, but as an obscure Senator from a small state had received little public attention. During late 2015 and early 2016, however, public opinion polls showed steady increases in support for Sanders. By February 2016, some public opinion surveys showed that support for Sanders and Clinton among likely Democratic primary voters had become even.

According to these public opinion polls, Sanders’ strength came particularly from millennial voters, or those aged between 17 and 29.1 Survey after survey revealed that a large majority of millennial Democrats preferred Sanders to Clinton—a pattern reminiscent of 2008, in which millennial voters gave then-Senator Barack Obama a large majority of votes over Clinton in both the Democratic Party primaries and the general election (Shelley and Hollen 2011). This unexpectedly high level of support for Sanders among millennial voters helped to keep Sanders’ campaign afloat in the early primaries. [End Page 273]

In 2016, the process of selecting the Democratic Party nominee began with precinct caucuses in Iowa on February 1. The first primary election took place in New Hampshire on February 9, followed by caucuses in Nevada on February 20 and a primary election in South Carolina on February 27. These first four contests were followed by eleven more on March 1, which was dubbed “Super Tuesday” and included primaries in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia and caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota. Among these fifteen states, Sanders and Clinton fought to a virtual tie in Iowa. Clinton won in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, while Sanders won Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Vermont. During the weekend of March 5 and 6, Sanders won caucuses in Kansas, Maine, and Nebraska while Clinton won a primary in Louisiana. On March 8, Clinton won by a landslide in Mississippi but lost narrowly to Sanders in Michigan, which she had been expected to carry by more than ten percentage points. A week later, Clinton won Florida handily, won North Carolina and Ohio by substantial margins, and won narrow victories in Illinois and Missouri.

In this paper, we investigate geographical dimensions of support for Sanders among millennial voters in these early primaries and caucuses, and how racial identification affected the decisions of young voters. First, we review reasons underlying Sanders’ popularity among younger Democrats relative to Clinton. Drawing from social media sites and various other media sources, and using exit poll data at the state level, we compare levels of support for Sanders among millennial voters relative to other voters. We then investigate other aspects of millennial support for Sanders, using county-level election data from 2016 and 2008, census data and data taken from social media sites.

why have millennial voters preferred sanders to clinton?

As Sanders’ support increased in public opinion polls in early 2016, observers noticed that the surge in levels of support for Sanders’ candidacy was particularly evident among millennial voters. Public opinion surveys indicated that current college students, most of whom are millennials, are more liberal...

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