As Elisa Martinez cast her ballot for Nevada’s presidential preference primary last week, she immediately felt the sense of pride that came with voting for the first time.
To Martinez, 18, the vote symbolized more than just exercising a fundamental right for citizens. As a first-generation American, her family didn’t become politically involved until 2016, but exercising the right to vote is a way to highlight the years of sacrifice it took her family to furnish a life in the U.S., she told the Sun.
“It felt so empowering to know that I’m so lucky to be able to vote,” said Martinez, a political science major at UNLV. “I could finally shape my future.”
Today marks the last day of voting in Nevada’s first-ever Democratic presidential preference primary. The state had mostly used caucuses as the means for picking major party presidential nominees until former Gov. Steve Sisolak signed legislation in 2021 switching the state to a primary system. And while a Republican primary is also taking place, the Nevada Republican Party has opted to have statewide caucuses Thursday evening as its method to award the delegates who will pick its nominee.
Martinez said she voted for President Joe Biden, the Democratic incumbent who is widely expected to win the Nevada primary and be his party’s nominee for the November general election. Biden ultimately won her vote, she said, because of his attempts to cancel student loan debt and preserving access to abortion — but Martinez also admits the Biden campaign has its work cut out to court other young voters, a key voting bloc that typically skews Democratic.
That’s especially true with Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. Reports of a worsening humanitarian situation unfolding in Gaza flood social media daily, Martinez said, and young voters are desperately looking for some sign the war will come to an end sooner than later.
“A lot of young voters are focused on the unfortunate events happening in Gaza,” Martinez said. “So I really feel like it is Biden’s call, if you want the vote of Gen Z, of all these young voters, to do something policy-wise about all of this.”
Ultimately, Martinez is afraid voters her age may grow apathetic and sit out the 2024 general election.
“Whether it’s for our current president or whoever is going to be the Republican nominee, I feel like this generation is going to be the generation that sits out this election, even though there’s so much at stake on our ballot,” Martinez said.
A December poll from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University showed support for Biden among Americans 18-29 at just 35%, compared with 59% in early 2021. In a hypothetical rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, the poll found young voters prefer Biden on issues like climate change, abortion and protecting democracy but trust Trump more on the economy, national security and, narrowly, the war in Gaza.
Biden, however, was the top choice of likely young voters, getting 43% support compared with 27% for Trump. Approximately 15% said they would vote for an independent candidate, while an additional 15% said they were unsure how they would vote. The poll also found the number of young voters “definitely” planning to vote in 2024 dropped to 49% compared with 57% in 2020.
Shelby Wiltz, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, said in a statement that Biden’s record spoke for itself.
“After Donald Trump repeatedly failed them, the Biden-Harris administration is delivering on promises made to young Nevada voters including signing the first commonsense gun safety legislation in more than 20 years, making historic investments in tackling the climate crisis, and forgiving student loan debt for thousands of Nevadans,” Wiltz said. “Young people have so much at stake in this election and we will continue engaging young voters to turn them out in support of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in November.”
Tanner Hale, executive director of Young Democrats of Nevada, conceded young voters may be the most passionate swath of the electorate and will again be a key group that could determine the 2024 election. But he also said Biden’s record spoke for itself and that support for Biden would only solidify in the months leading up to the election.
“We’re at the point in the cycle and certainly not an unprecedented part of the cycle where everyone is looking, everyone is evaluating,” said Hale. “But I do think that as we get close to the election and as we move toward the eventual choice that we’re going to be left with between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, I don’t think there’s a single case to be made that Joe Biden doesn’t deserve to be reelected and continue for four more years.”
Any malaise over Biden among young voters could be attributed to a so-called generational awakening — a large-scale event that leads to increased civic participation, said Ender Austin, Nevada state director at NextGen America, a youth voter education group.
“We consistently see folks who are waking up around the war effort,” said Austin, adding that events like the Vietnam War served as that awakening in generations prior.
Exit polling after the 2020 race from the Pew Research Center show millennials and Generation Z voters favored Biden over Trump by a combined 19.5%, highlighting Democrats’ need to keep young voters engaged, according to entrepreneur Jason Palmer, who is running in the primary against Biden.
Palmer said he campaigned heavily on targeting young people and felt compelled to run after seeing general discontent with Biden, especially among young and independent voters. Palmer told the Sun that he realized the chances of beating Biden are “minuscule,” but he’s confident he can connect with younger voters better than Biden.
“I jumped into the race because I saw that there was going to be no debate and no energy on the Democratic side,” Palmer said. “And I was very worried that we were going to sleepwalk into a Trump election.”
He continued: “If anything, I want this election here in Nevada to send that message strongly to Biden and the Democratic Party.”