Hillary Clinton has had a few problems in her campaign. She’s had an email server problem, a WikiLeaks problem, Benghazi problems, Bernie or Bust problems, and a huge millennial problem.
Now that the presidential election is down to just Clinton versus Trump, plus Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, Millennial voters are shifting their support to Hillary. Her struggle to connect with the youngest generation of voters could finally be over, especially after Donald Trump’s “Grab her by the pussy” comments and less-than-professional performances at the debates.
According to several pre-Democratic National Convention polls, Bernie Sanders was unarguably the favorite candidate of millennials. More than half of Americans aged 20 to 36 viewed him favorably, while only about 35 percent could say the same for Hillary Clinton. By September, Clinton had only secured 31 percent of voters under 35. Trump trailed her by just 5 points with 26 percent of the young American vote, while Libertarian presidential nominee had 29 percent of young voters’ support.
Just one month later, polls are shifting incredibly. A Harvard Institute of Politics survey published on Wednesday showed that Clinton gained the support of almost half of 18 to 29-year-old voters by the end of October. This puts the Democratic nominee at a 28-point lead over Trump, who only secured about 20 percent of millennials’ support. This pattern was supported by several other recent polls, including a study by the Black Youth Project and a Rock the Vote/IPSOS/USA Today poll. The latter two surveys suggested Hillary may actually have up to 60 percent of Millennials who are now #WithHer.
Hillary Clinton’s surge of favorability among the youngest American voters likely has a lot to do with the leaked Access Hollywood tape, in which Donald Trump bragged about sexual assault, and Trump’s three laughably boisterous and unprofessional debate performances, The Independent reports.
In the leaked “hot mic” video from Trump’s stint on Access Hollywood with Billy Bush from 2005, he said several lewd comments. These included, “Grab them [women] by the pussy…you can do anything,” and “When you’re a star they let you do it.” This caused the mass abandoning of support by Republican establishment politicians for the GOP nominee, which was followed by widespread public denouncement by voters.
Trump also saw a dip in polls after the first debate, in something that Republican strategist Liesl Hickey described to The New York Times as soaring unpopularity. Now that millennials are pulling for Hillary, Trump’s low chances of getting into the highest office could be getting even slimmer.