Only 9 percent of young Americans say US ‘headed in the right direction’: Survey

Only 9 percent of young Americans believe the U.S. is headed in the right direction, according to a new poll.

The survey, released Thursday from Harvard Kennedy School’s Insitute of Politics, found that less than 10 percent of voters 18-29 said the country is generally headed in the right direction. Roughly 58 percent of respondents said the country is headed in the wrong direction.

But, more than half of the young Americans indicated in the poll that they would vote for President Biden in November’s election Additionally, 53 percent of the survey takers said they will definitely be voting in the presidential election overall.

Biden has been under pressure to improve his polling among young voters after an NPR/NewsHour/Marist Poll this month found former President Trump up 2 points over him among millennial and Generation Z Americans. The president has pushed for student debt relief in order to court young Americans, who were a critical voting bloc for him in the 2020 race.

In the new poll, the economy was what 27 percent of young Americans said was the national issue that concerned them the most.

On other issues young voters have indicated they care about, 45 percent of registered young Americans said they are following the news about the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Additionally, 45 percent said they don’t know when asked if they believe Israel’s response so far has been justified. Thirty-two percent said they believe the response after the Oct. 7 attacks has not been justified, per the poll.

On immigration issues, 53 percent of young Americans said they believe there is a crisis at the U.S.-southern border. Meanwhile, 50 percent agreed with the idea that immigrants improve the culture of the U.S., the survey found.

The poll was conducted between March 14-21 and includes 2,010 young Americans. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.02 percentage points.