Hillary Clinton is now trying to attract Bernie’s young voters

She needs to convince them that she’s a better alternative


With Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee in all but name, her campaign has started to court a demographic which has long avoided her: young people.

Hillary trailed her opponent Bernie Sanders by 1.2 million votes among voters between the ages of 18 and 29. Throughout his fight for life throughout the primaries, Bernie overwhelmingly won the youth vote in state after state. Now that it’s highly unlikely he will get the required delegates to win the nomination, Hillary has to start convincing his voters that she is a better option than Trump or a third party candidate, and that starts with young people. A poll of young Bernie supporters showed that about a quarter of them would never support Hillary in the general election.

Clinton has traditionally struggled with young voters, a trend that also appeared when she lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama in 2008. If she wants to win the general election in November, she will have to win young voters over. Trump has the advantage of being a celebrity and having an enormous presence on social media. He also polls just three points behind Clinton among young people, in a recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll.

Given the traditional trend of young voters to vote Democrat, this could spell trouble for Clinton. Her campaign has tried desperately to appeal to young voters throughout the primaries and have been mocked for their efforts. Now that Bernie is working with her to defeat Trump, she has begun to bring in his staffers, including one of his college outreach specialists, and will have access to the targeting tools used by Bernie’s campaign. Clinton hopes to use him as a surrogate in an effort to convince young people that she will represent their interests in the Oval Office.

Tad Devine, a senior advisor for Senator Sanders, told POLITICO: “They’re discussing all these things now, and once they figure it out, that’s what he’ll be doing.” Obama will also campaign for Hillary on the college campuses, which helped him win the presidency eight years ago. She will also begin targeting different subsets of young people, such as high school voters and college students. Super-PACs working for Hillary are planning to release ads that are aimed at young voters. Clinton is even going so far to bring in celebrities to help campaign for her, such as Lena Dunham and Christina Aguilera. All of this is a critical attempt by Clinton’s campaign to help win the crucial and possibly deciding millennial vote.

Young voters who feel the Bern also tend to be more passionate and enthusiastic about their candidate than Hillary supporters. This passion combined with the wave of anti-establishment sentiment which grips many of these people will likely result in many of them not voting for Hillary, just to make a point.

Les Leopold of Alternet says “young folks just might do all the stuff older folks say is totally irresponsible: stay home, write in Bernie, vote for minor third-party candidates,” because they simply aren’t as excited about Hillary as they are for Bernie.

Some think that Hillary’s lack of support among young voters is indicative of an overall lack of enthusiasm in her supporters across all demographics.

Enthusiasm could very well be the most important factor in an election in which many people are voting for whomever they hate the least.