Meet the 24-year-old trying to solve Biden’s problems with young voters

“She’s in a very difficult position right now,” said Sarah Freeman, who served as president of the GW College Democrats and organized the visit. “It’s difficult to engage the youth vote both with what’s going on in the Middle East…and also with the fact that (Biden) is so far in age from everyone in college.”

Levenson has what could be one of the toughest tasks in Biden’s re-election campaign, tasked with persuading young Americans, many of whom are deeply skeptical of Biden, to vote for him in November. A political activist since high school, when she first met Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, Levenson has a job helping students counter criticism of the president and training volunteer leaders and organizers to talk to voters who are not yet convinced by the vote. for him.

Throughout Biden’s term, many young voters have expressed frustration over stalled campaign promises, such as canceling student debt and providing access to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. In recent months, widespread campus protests have erupted over the president’s support for Israel, despite widespread civilian casualties caused by the ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

Although inflation, housing and health care are top priorities for young voters, according to polls, war looms large on the college campuses Levenson visited in the spring. A young Biden Supporters — including national leaders of the College Democrats of America, a group whose support the campaign has touted — have expressed concerns about the president’s handling of the conflict.

“Every day that Democrats fail to unite for a permanent ceasefire, a two-state solution, and recognition of Palestinian statehood, more and more young people find themselves disillusioned with the party. » read a late April statement from the group, one of 15 organizations focused on young voters that supported Biden’s campaign in March.

Levenson joined the Biden team in January, earlier in the election cycle than Democratic presidential candidates typically hire for his role and is one of the youngest people to ever hold his title. She has spent the past few months traveling the country, meeting with young voters and organizers and training students to use an app that allows users to send pro-Biden content to share on social media, gather campaign contacts and develop a voting plan.

So far, Levenson has mostly appeared before a friendly audience of students and Democratic leaders already considering supporting Biden, highlighting policy areas where Biden gets high marks from young voters, such as climate change and reproductive health. The campaign declined to respond to The Washington Post’s requests to view her work in person, citing scheduling conflicts, but made her available by phone.

Student organizers who met with Levenson this spring praised her and the campaign’s efforts, but said she faced a huge challenge.

This spring at the Michigan College Democrats’ convention, where she helped coach attendees in creating Students for Biden chapters on their campuses, Levenson said. Student leaders believe Biden can be pushed to the left, according to Alec Hughes, president of the College Democrats at the University of Michigan, who attended the meeting.

Levenson, he recalled, urged organizers to remember that “either he or (Donald) Trump – who obviously cannot be pushed to the left, cannot be pushed to compromise at all.”

Building an “empathetic bridge”

In conducting trainings, Levenson encourages volunteers to use an “empathetic bridge” to speak with potential voters who might disagree with some of Biden’s policies — as she put it: “Giving people space and permission…that they can be with us, even if maybe you don’t agree 100 percent with every policy.”

“When we talk about reaching young people where they are, it’s not just about reaching young people physically where they are on campus and online. It’s also about reaching them where they are at, in terms of what they think about the election and what they think about Biden right now,” Levenson said.

Some outside organizing groups are optimistic that Levenson’s time working in organizations such as the student-led March for Our Lives will help Democrats better coordinate with allies who share the party’s goals, Santiago Mayer said. founder of Generation Z voters. Tomorrow.

With Levenson, the emphasis is more on being “additive rather than duplicative,” he said.

His efforts could prove crucial for Biden, as enthusiasm among young voters has declined significantly over the past four years. Although voters aged 18 to 29 played a key role in Biden’s 2020 victory, supporting him against Trump by a 25-point margin, Biden now holds just an 11-point lead in that bracket. age in an average of four surveys since April.

In a recent Harvard youth poll, a large majority of young Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, 76% to 18%. But the same poll finds that young people rank “Israel/Palestine” 15th out of 16 areas of concern.

Levenson said young people most often speak to him about areas where “there is a particularly clear contrast between Biden and our opponent,” such as the fight against gun violence, reproductive health care and the cost of living.

To persuade young people to vote for Biden, “sometimes it’s important to clearly show how much worse Trump would be,” she said.

Trump has sought to present himself as a better president for young voters and has claimed that young people are faring worse under the Biden administration, citing inflation, unemployment levels and declining homeownership among young people.

The Biden campaign is expanding the ranks of staff focused on young voters, and Levenson has no counterpart in the Trump campaign, interviews with strategists on both sides show.

Always, Some Biden allies in the Democratic College remain unconvinced that his campaign is doing enough to win over skeptical voters.

Sohali Vaddula, the group’s communications director, said “they’re doing a lot more (outreach among young voters) than we’ve ever seen in the past,” but she worries the campaign doesn’t understand “the seriousness of the situation” of young people. voter frustration with Gaza.

“All this conflict has overshadowed a lot of the great things he did,” said Vaddula, who will support Biden in November but described the difficulties of persuading his peers to do the same.

She said some of her classmates told her they couldn’t think about reproductive rights “when there’s a genocide going on,” while others saw no difference between Biden and Trump and didn’t had no intention of voting at all.

Snapchat, fraternity houses, festivals and viral moments

The Biden campaign aims to reach young voters in three categories: on campus, online and non-students, according to Levenson.

At the heart of its campus organizing is Students for Biden Harris, an organizing program launched in March with chapters on more than 270 campuses in 38 states and DC.

Over the summer, Levenson and his colleagues plan to focus more on non-students, turning to gathering places for young people, such as bars, sporting events and music festivals like Dreamville Fest in North Carolina, where the campaign was conducted this spring. Online, the campaign works with influencers and buys digital ads on social media sites such as Snapchat, where it spends the most money in any political campaign.

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, sees “significant openings among younger consumers,” focusing on opportunities for viral moments, according to an external campaign consultant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more openly campaign projects. Last fall, for example, Trump stopped by an Iowa State University fraternity to flip burgers and toss autographed footballs.

To motivate voters who don’t see a difference between the two candidates, Levenson said she will draw on her personal experience with gun violence prevention. and initiatives such as the Affordable Care Act, which Biden has championed.

“What would negative look like with Trump? » she added.

Emily Guskin contributed to this report.