On Thursday, September 17th, the Millennial Action Project’s (MAP) Executive Director and COO Layla Zaidane participated on a virtual panel,“U.S. Electorate in 2020: Rise of Millennial and Minority Vote in the Election”, hosted by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

The panel included William H. Frey, Senior Fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program with the Brookings Institute, and Eleanor O’Neil, Research Director at Echelon Insights. The panel was moderated by Paul Linnarz, Director of KAS office USA. The panel aimed to better understand demographic change, rising diversity, and its impact on the 2020 election.

The discussion began with each panelist introducing themselves and how their organizations engage with  the Millennial and minority vote. Layla Zaidane emphasized the work that MAP does to engage with millennial policymakers across the country and influence the narrative surrounding Millennial issues to focus on future-oriented solutions. Zaidane recognized that Millennials are not a monolithic group — Millennials are diverse in their politics as well. In fact, the fastest growing party in the Millennial generation is Independent. 

Zaidane emphasized the fact that millennials are more fired up than ever to participate in this election, but that they’re less driven to vote for specific parties than are older generations. Millennials are focused on a candidate that speaks to them on policy issues: “among this generation, they’re not voting for a party, they’re voting for a person.” Additionally, she noted that we are seeing a record number of young and minority candidates running for office, citing a 266% increase in millennial candidates since the 2018 midterms. 

Likewise, William H. Frey, a demographer, noted that America is at a pivotal point in demography. Frey continued to mention that the younger generations will change the way the United States works, and that young people are much more racially diverse than previous generations. 

Eleanor O’Neil contended that Millennials tend to be more liberal than older generations, even if they are aligned with a more traditionally conservative party. According to O’Neil, Millennials tend to support same-sex marriage and have more awareness of racial issues than older generations, and this will impact the way they vote. Eleanor also contended that Millennial voters are likely to vote for Biden by a 35 point margin in Echelon Insights polls. 

The panel discussion concluded with questions from the virtual audience. The panelists emphasized that millennials are fired up about a wide range of issues, and this has led to an increase in millennials running for office.