Young voters are often miscast as not caring about elections. Voting advocates say building relationships and forming community is key to mobilizing young people eager to see systemic change.
By Chitra Iyer
Darrion Benson, of Austin, talks with potential voters during a phone banking session at Chicago Votes on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (Talia Sprague/for City Bureau)
It’s Nov. 4, 2024 — a foggy Monday afternoon in Chicago. In less than 36 hours, voters will elect Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States.
Chicago Votes is hosting its last phone banking shift, where Darrion Benson, a civic engagement fellow, is calling friends and family to ask if they plan to vote. It’s part of his mission to inspire electoral participation through relationships and personal stories. But this process is often a struggle, he said. His friends tell him they feel alienated from politics.
“Many feel invisible — that neither party speaks to their interests,” Benson said. “My cousins, my little brother, they all told me they weren’t voting. Nothing is changing because nothing moves for us … and people don’t want to participate in something that [they feel] won’t work anyways.”
That disillusionment has become common among Chicago’s young Black voters, according to young people, voting organizers and a local professor who spoke to City Bureau about voting last fall. Media coverage often ignored or oversimplified the issues these voters cared about, such as the rising cost of living and economy, immigration, a ceasefire in Gaza and reproductive rights, they said. Beyond the right to vote for marginalized groups, many young voters care more about upending traditional political structures so they can truly influence public policy, organizers said.
But rather than berating those who don’t vote, organizers are trying to build relationships with young Black Chicagoans to increase civic participation, combat misinformation and promote a more inclusive, empowered electoral process.
Phone bank volunteers follow a script for potential voters at Chicago Votes. (Talia Sprague/for City Bureau)
Dixon Romeo, co-founder of Not Me We, said community building is key to the group’s work.
Not Me We has been part of a coalition fighting gentrification-fueled displacement of longtime Woodlawn and South Shore residents near the Obama Presidential Center. Their efforts include: phone banks, canvassing, gentrification teach-ins with community partners, an affordable housing ordinance for Woodlawn and advisory referendums supporting housing protections in South Shore. The group recently merged with Southside Together Organizing for Power to form Southside Together.
It is important to create authentic and fun spaces where young Black Chicagoans feel heard, valued and empowered to drive collective change, Romeo said.
“To get more folks involved in organizing, we meet people where they’re at and have tough conversations,” Romeo said. “But organizing can be so emotionally laborious, and it’s easy to become burnt out. Through these events, we build relationships, understand folks’ needs and empower people to create change together.
“We do so many events to give people a reason to show up. Allowing people to form community is the only way to sustain this work.”
What young voters care about
Public opinion polls and surveys are common in news media, particularly during elections, but they often omit young, nonwhite Americans, said Cathy Cohen, a political science professor at University of Chicago.
“The structure of media content isn’t meant to facilitate deep engagement and complexity,” Cohen said. “The media is a profit industry, meant to be provocative [and] attract as many viewers as possible. It’s meant to present and debate the most outrageous thing that Trump or [former Vice President Kamala] Harris says – not to reflect on the complicated relationship young people have with the political process.”
Cohen created the GenForward survey in 2016 to explore “how race and ethnicity shape how young adults, both Millennials and Gen Z-ers, experience and think about the world,” according to the website.
For the October 2024 survey about the presidential election, 2,359 adults ages 18-40 answered 34 questions about the major candidates, which issues were most important in their communities and the country, if they voted in 2020 and planned to vote last fall, and other key issues. The responses were broken down by nine categories, including age, race, gender, political party, education and employment status, according to the survey.
Heading into the election, 20 percent of survey respondents listed inflation as their primary concern, the largest share for any particular issue. Other top issues included economic growth, abortion and reproductive rights, and threats to American democracy, according to the survey.
Respondents most often chose economic growth, income inequality and immigration as the top three most important problems facing the country, according to the survey. Around one-fifth of respondents said they did not plan to vote or were unsure. Many said they did not think the candidates represented their beliefs, did not think their vote mattered and were frustrated with the current political system.
Many of these same issues and trends emerged in the post-election poll from Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. Surveying 2,064 people ages 18-34, most cited cost of living and inflation as their biggest concern, and many respondents said they’re struggling to meet basic needs. About one-fourth of non-voters said they didn’t like any of the candidates, and less than one-fourth of young people said they felt like they were a part of a political group or movement.
The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza also was a big issue locally.
Pro-Palestine protests swelled in Chicago and on local college campuses in late 2023 and 2024, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. Thousands of pro-Palestinian Chicagoans marched near the United Center during the DNC, even as delegates from the Uncommitted Movement were denied a speaking spot for a Palestinian-American on stage.
This was the main issue for Stevie Valles, executive director of Chicago Votes. He attended Harris’ DNC acceptance speech, in which she said she would “always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself” while also working toward a ceasefire so "Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination."
“It's politics,” Valles said. “She's just maneuvering words to satisfy everybody without committing to anything. But people want a weapons embargo. People want a ceasefire. People want this to end because it's inhumane. And you can see that — when that's the biggest applause you get, then why wouldn't you let a Palestinian-American speak on stage? Imagine how happy people would be. Imagine how much support you would get.”
Harris’ stance and broader criticism about how the Biden administration responded to the war spurred some hesitation to support the Democratic ticket in November. The Uncommitted Movement did not endorse Harris though many ultimately urged people to vote against Trump and not support a third party candidate.
In a recent online poll, Institute of Middle East Understanding and YouGov surveyed 604 voters who backed former President Joe Biden in 2020 but voted for someone other than Harris in November. Of those respondents, 29% cited "ending Israel’s violence in Gaza" as the most important factor affecting their vote, over issues including the economy and immigration.
CPS students stage a sit-in at City Hall as Chicago City Council voted on a Gaza ceasefire resolution in January 2024. (Grace Del Vecchio/City Bureau).
Gabrielle Green, 26, is the director of policy engagement and research at BlackRoots Alliance. The group centers on uplifting community members through peer learning, organizing and public policy engagement to cultivate the transformation and empowerment of Black communities.
Green voted for the Harris-Walz ticket, citing reproductive health, immigration and the economy as her key issues.
“Reproductive health was always the first consideration for me,” Green said. “My first job out of college was organizing for Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin — so I already knew what cut funding and lack of support looked like, and I didn’t want this to happen.”
Still, she wasn’t entirely happy with her choice, she said. She and her friends are deeply unsatisfied with the two-party system, feeling neither side fully represents their interests.
“Having progressive values, I fall in line with the Democratic Party, but I would never register as a Democrat. A lot of Black people feel like the Democratic Party cheated them,” she said.
“Trying to connect yourself to one party is kind of mindless, almost like a sheep being herded. I think the Democratic and Republican parties are both equal machines in that they both have the same purpose, but the only difference is how they go about doing it and how they represent themselves.”
Stevie Valles, co-executive director of Chicago Votes, speaks during an interview at Chicago Votes on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (Talia Sprague/for City Bureau)
Valles said Black Americans are growing weary of how politicians try to appeal for their support.
“The problem with the way that politicians talk about voting blocs is that it’s so identity-based, but unspecific, unreflective,” Valles said. “There’s a lack of self-accountability in politicians; if a demographic doesn’t show up to vote, it becomes their fault, not the politician’s fault for failing to convince their constituents.”
Harris’ campaign commercials included talking points about protecting the middle class and women’s reproductive health, but Valles felt her specific policy proposals were unclear, he said. Though he didn’t connect with Trump’s messaging, either, Valles felt that Harris didn’t appeal to people like him and his family, who are dealing with low incomes, underfunded schools, lack of health care, community violence and the carceral system.
Valles also highlighted when former President Barack Obama called out Black men and suggested misogyny was the real reason they may not vote for Harris. While there are some signs young, Black voters are shifting to the right, Black Americans have overwhelmingly backed the Democratic Party, and a fall 2024 poll showed broad support among Black Americans for Harris.
“It’s coming from people who treat Black men as a data point without understanding our experiences, everything we’ve gone through even after sticking with the Democratic Party,” Valles said.
“Black people are on the bottom of every statistical category that relates to quality of life – in unemployment, life expectancy, poverty, rates of homelessness. We make up almost all of our carceral system. It's not like only Republicans have been in office. We had two terms of a Black man in office. Clinton made things worse for us before that. Sure, there may be some misogyny there, but that’s just a fraction of the story.”
Aubry Nelson, a 29-year-old program assistant at Uniting Voices Chicago, said she wishes elected officials would try harder to directly reach young people; ideally at community gatherings but also “through vehicles they already use, like social media and an understanding of meme culture.”
“We often look at children like they don’t really know what’s happening, but they pick up on everything,” Nelson said. “I feel like young people are actually very informed, but the way we access information has radically changed over the past 10-15 years. I don’t think [politicians] understand how to communicate effectively with us anymore.”
Chicago Votes lead a phone banking session on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (Talia Sprague/for City Bureau)
‘What would it look like to actually build political power within our neighborhoods?’
Voting advocates are working to sustain political engagement and discourse among young people beyond the national election cycle. For Chicago Votes, this effort begins in neighborhoods.
The group publishes nonpartisan voter guides, offering accessible information on local and national civics, elections and policies on channels that are engaging, fun and authentic to young voters. These have included podcasts, a dynamic social media presence, events and programs.
They also hosted “Give a Sh*t Weekend” in the days leading up to the election. This included art exhibits, installations and a fashion show, all featuring voter registration, volunteer training and information. They also hosted a “Parade to the Polls” event on Election Day.
“As an electorate, we’ve been taught that the only way to make change is through the presidential election,” said Alex Boutros, formerly the group’s program director. “But what about the other things? Most people don’t know the difference between a senator and a governor, let alone what they do.
“We build up incredible amounts of community power before each election through base building, but after every election, we drop it – all of it. And then we have to start from scratch. You’re telling me that I’ve knocked on all these doors, but I’ll never talk to these people again? It’s insane! What would it look like to actually build political power within our neighborhoods?”
Voter turnout in Chicago reached 67.9% for the November election, a near-record low for in-person voting. The highest turnout was among voters ages 25 to 34, according to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
Looking beyond the election, Chicago Votes aim to transform electoral organizing from a temporary campaign into a sustained community building process that builds power within neighborhoods and invests in connections.
In early 2025, the group began a court-watching coalition, hosted canvassing events and a lobby trip to Springfield, and expanded a ‘Creative Collective’ space to encourage young Chicagoans to connect with others and make a difference through combined creativity.
Alex Boutros, formerly the Chicago Votes program director, during an interview at Chicago Votes. (Talia Sprague/for City Bureau)
Green has focused most of her career in encouraging political participation. The key to getting more young people involved is accessibility, she said.
A 2020 FiveThirtyEight survey of over 8,000 people showed voters aged 18-34 more often said they faced long waits to vote, couldn’t get time off to vote, couldn’t physically access their polling place or other issues preventing them from casting a ballot. Many Chicagoans faced long lines on the final day of early voting in November 2024.
“Preparing folks to vote and giving them the information they need will increase turnout, but it can still be hard to get people to deviate from their day to day life, especially if they’re in survival mode,” Green said. “What if we had more accessible voting options? What would it look like if we had an Election Day where nobody had to work, and everyone could take the day off to vote?”
Jahmal Cole, founder of youth organization My Block, My Hood, My City, said helping young people understand how politics affect their daily lives also will help drive youth participation in civic issues.
“For youth in Chicago, national and local politics don’t feel relatable,” Cole said. “How do you explain these things to kids to make them understand that their voice matters? It’s about breaking it down and making them feel like they’re a part of [what’s around them].”
Romeo acknowledges that kind of change will take time, requiring consistent community organizing, relationship-building and sustained pressure on power structures. He wants to be careful that any process is inclusive and encourages political action.
“There’s an intentional narrative around what is or isn’t possible,” he said. “It may not benefit politicians for change to happen quickly, but as organizers, our job is to shift that perception of helplessness — encouraging people to take action, hold elected officials accountable and drive change forward.”
Darrion Benson talks with potential voters during a phone banking session at Chicago Votes. (Talia Sprague/for City Bureau)
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High above Michigan Avenue, rain has begun to speckle the Chicago Votes office windows. Benson leaned forward as he spoke to another caller. His eyes shine with a newfound passion for politics — a far cry from the skepticism he had once felt.
A mentor encouraged him to join Chicago Votes’ Unlock Civics program while he was incarcerated, and he decided to give the program a chance.
Everything changed for him during a section which delved into the history of voter suppression and “how it works systematically. I [felt] daunted and enraged at the same time,” Benson said. “It fired me up for this work. I wanted to know more, spread the word, and get out to help. Like, ‘yo, if we need the community to change, we need to participate!'"
He began educating incarcerated individuals about civics and increasing their access to the ballot. He continues his work even though he cannot vote himself. He remains incarcerated under Illinois’ work-release program.
“To be in a position like mine, and to see other people not wanting to vote?” Benson groans. “It’s like, y’all have got it good!
“I know these things won’t change in a day. Disenchantment won’t reverse itself after just one conversation. But even though I can’t vote, even though I can’t pick a [candidate], I can still spread the word. I can still plant that seed for change. I can lead with my heart.”
One election and hundreds of phone calls later, Benson has — and will continue — to do just that.
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