The Elections Young Voters Are Ignoring

Clasine Bernstein

Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who’s worked on campaigns for decades, had the blunt advice for young voters in our recent interview: “You have a weapon. Wake up, use it.” He meant primary elections; almost nobody votes in them.

A typical congressional district has 850,000 people, yet general elections draw maybe 200,000 voters. Primaries get closer to 40,000, leading to that single primary vote becoming worth about five times as more than a general election ballot.

“If I were to tell kids you have one vote a year, forget the general election. Vote in primaries,” Mr. Murphy said.

Parties decide their direction through primaries, not general elections. Trump took over the Republican Party through primary voters who showed up consistently while others stayed home. When most people skip primaries, a relatively small group of committed voters can reshape an entire party.

Mr. Murphy pushed back on the idea that wealthy donors control everything. “Billionaires spend all their time trying to figure out how to beg people to vote,” he said. Money buys advertising and organization, but it can’t replace actual voters. The problem is that most young people don’t show up, especially not for primaries.

Local elections run on even smaller margins. School boards and city councils get decided by a few thousand voters, sometimes just hundreds. A coordinated group of friends could swing these races. These elections often determine things that affect daily life more directly than presidential races, like school policies and local infrastructure. 

Mr. Murphy also mentioned the time advantage young voters have. An 18-year-old could participate in 15 presidential elections, 30 midterms, and hundreds of local races. Political influence builds up over decades if you start early and stick with it.

Complaining about a rigged system gets harder to defend when young people voluntarily skip the elections where their votes carry the most weight. Presidential votes in solidly partisan states barely register. Primaries and local elections with low turnout are exactly where small groups can make real differences. 

Mr. Murphy frames it as a straightforward choice: keep avoiding low-turnout elections while complaining about having no influence, or recognize where the power sits and use it.

Young voters have the most potential influence in the elections they’re least likely to attend. This is not an issue of system, but rather of choice.