Vice President Kamala Harris’ hopes to widen margins among younger voters in the 2024 elections have not materialized, according to exit polls.

Donald Trump’s victory over Harris was partly due to Trump making significant gains on his 2020 numbers in a number of voter blocs, including among Gen Z voters — those between 18 and 27 years old — and first-time voters.

Voters under 30 tend to vote in fewer numbers than other age groups and have historically favored Democratic candidates. This year’s exit poll results show that this voting bloc has not provided the same cushion for Democrats as in previous elections.

Preliminary data from the Associated pressVoteCast polls, based on more than 120,000 voters, found that about half of voters under 30 supported Harris in the 2024 election, compared with about 6 in 10 who supported President Joe Biden in 2020. By comparison, well over 40 percent of young voters supported Trump this year, a jump from about a third in 2020.

Newsweek contacted the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment.

Similar improvements for Trump among younger voters were noted in CNN’s 2024 exit polls of more than 22,000 voters. In the last election, Biden defeated Trump in this demographic by 24 points. This year, Harris’ lead over Trump among those 18 to 29 was 11 points, down from 13 points in the key demographic group.

David B. Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron in Ohio, said the dip in support among Gen Z voters from 2020 is a “major concern” for Democrats.

“Young voters are a crucial part of the Democratic base and if it is eroding, where do they compensate? Declining enthusiasm for Harris among young voters definitely played a role in her electoral defeat,” Cohen said. Newsweek.

“Going forward, Democrats will have to figure out how to get young voters back into the ranks — especially young men — if they want to be competitive nationally.”

The numbers also do not reflect the enthusiasm and expectation among Harris and other Democrats that younger voters would propel Harris to victory.

“Across the country, we’re seeing young people showing up in droves and forming long lines on college campuses in battleground states,” said Justin Meszler, program director of the campaign group Voters of Tomorrow. The hill on Tuesday. “While no one should have to wait hours to vote, these lines indicate what we have known for months: Gen Z will elect Kamala Harris and defeat Donald Trump today.”

Younger voters are also more likely to vote for the first time, and Harris addressed this group directly in a campaign ad released Tuesday.

In the ad, Harris watched video messages from new voters on a cell phone while encouraging others to go to the polls on Election Day.

“I love Gen Z,” Harris said. ‘Thank you all for voting. You know your power – your power through your voice, through your vote.

“And for anyone who hasn’t voted yet, I’m telling you, you’ll enjoy the process. It will make you feel really good to remember that this is your country, this is your future, and you have the right to decide where we go. So get out and vote.”

CNN’s exit poll showed Trump was the preferred candidate over Harris among new voters in this election, 54 percent to 45 percent. That nine-point buffer for Trump marked a massive shift of more than 40 points from 2020, when CNN’s exit poll showed that 64 percent of the 15,590 first-time voters surveyed said they supported Biden.

In an op-ed for Puck, political journalist Peter Hamby characterized Harris’ performance among young voters in the election as an “abject disaster” and a “disturbing omen” for the Democratic Party’s political future.

Hamby added that the vice president failed to appeal to younger voters in several key states on the key election issue of the economy, leading them to believe that Trump “could probably help their pocketbooks regardless of his shortcomings.”

“The energy I saw there in flyover country simply did not match what the Harris campaign was relentlessly selling on TikTok and other channels, where Harris and the Democrats were doing their best to appear cool,” Hamby wrote.

“There was Tim Walz, who pretended he knew more about football than he probably did. There were the Swifties for Kamala. The Chappell Roan-inspired Harris-Walz hats. AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) appeared on Twitch. There was the avalanche of remixes and clips that surfaced on JD Vance Ever since Harris became the nominee, Democrats were hoping they could get good vibes from paying for that car loan.”

Harris is expected to concede defeat to Trump during a speech at Howard University in Washington DC on Wednesday afternoon.

Update 11/08/2024, 3:14 am ET: This article has been updated with comments from David B. Cohen, professor of political science at the University of Akron.