Did College Students Win Trump the Election?

Historically, voters under 30 are some of the least likely people in the country to vote in presidential elections. However, they turned out this year and shifted dramatically toward Donald Trump.

He ended up winning the largest share of young voters of any GOP presidential candidate since 2008, with young men in particular flocking toward Trump in swing states.

Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk ran a massive operation over the past few months, visiting dozens of college campuses to host open discussions with students and faculty on political issues.

Many exchanges between himself and left-wing students went viral on social media, garnering over two billion views. Not only did Kirk dialogue with students, but he engaged in mass voter registration events, enrolling tens of thousands of new voters who may have otherwise sat out of the election.

Trump’s margin of victory, though decisive overall, was relatively narrow in the swing states. He won Pennsylvania by two percentage points, Michigan by one, and Wisconsin by less than one.

While Trump’s success in these states was too large to solely attribute to newly registered university students, the success Kirk saw reflected broader sentiments among young men and women toward Trump. The stigma around the former president appeared to be fading, and by offering reasonable arguments, these voters could be persuaded into supporting him.

And contrary to outsized media coverage of the massive anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses, that issue was not close to being the most important one for young Americans. This demographic consistently named the economy as their most important issue, which is likely why they swayed in huge numbers toward Trump.

Voters under 30 in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan swung toward Trump by 15, 18, and 24 points, respectively, compared to 2020. The consensus was clear: in almost every battleground state, newly mobilized young voters were attracted to Trump and ready to cast aside Biden and Harris.