The Democrats still won a margin among 18-29 year old voters of +13, despite Trump's imaginary world, though down quite a bit from the margin of +24 in 2020. That 11 point decline in the Dem margin (really a 5.5 shift since a 1% shift from D to R results in a 2% change in margin) compares to the total vote margin shift of about 6% but it doesn't compare with the largest shift that really decided the election which was among Hispanics where the margin shifted a full 25%. A good chunk, and I leave it to somebody else to do the math, in 18-29 year olds might be a reflection of the Latino shift. Latinos are 15% of eligible voters but being a younger population a bigger proportion of young voters.
I would be cautious about taking exit poll data at face value. The sample isn’t always great; for example, exit polls conducted on Election Day necessarily leave out people who voted early in-person or by mail. Best practice is to wait for Pew and Catalist to put out their voter file-based reports. Of course, that kind of work takes time and by the time these reports release erroneous narratives have often calcified into conventional wisdom.
On investigation, you are correct, and I did find demographic info that was done by interview not exit polls by AP Vote Cast, which does show both the strong R trend among both the 18-29 yo and Latino demographics, and in their rendition they showed the 18-29 yo Dem margin shrinking from +25 in 2020 to +4 in 2024 where the Latino margin shrunk from +28 to +12 so if anything the younger age shift was slightly more but both are very dramatic and the large contributors to the change in margins. Also this analysis shows more of a Black shift than the exit polls with Bidens 2020 margin of +83 shrinking to +67 and also the black vote as a percentage of voters shrank slightly.
The Democrats still won a margin among 18-29 year old voters of +13, despite Trump's imaginary world, though down quite a bit from the margin of +24 in 2020. That 11 point decline in the Dem margin (really a 5.5 shift since a 1% shift from D to R results in a 2% change in margin) compares to the total vote margin shift of about 6% but it doesn't compare with the largest shift that really decided the election which was among Hispanics where the margin shifted a full 25%. A good chunk, and I leave it to somebody else to do the math, in 18-29 year olds might be a reflection of the Latino shift. Latinos are 15% of eligible voters but being a younger population a bigger proportion of young voters.
Data Source https://www.nbcwashington.com/decision-2024/2024-voter-turnout-election-demographics-trump-harris/3762138/
I would be cautious about taking exit poll data at face value. The sample isn’t always great; for example, exit polls conducted on Election Day necessarily leave out people who voted early in-person or by mail. Best practice is to wait for Pew and Catalist to put out their voter file-based reports. Of course, that kind of work takes time and by the time these reports release erroneous narratives have often calcified into conventional wisdom.
On investigation, you are correct, and I did find demographic info that was done by interview not exit polls by AP Vote Cast, which does show both the strong R trend among both the 18-29 yo and Latino demographics, and in their rendition they showed the 18-29 yo Dem margin shrinking from +25 in 2020 to +4 in 2024 where the Latino margin shrunk from +28 to +12 so if anything the younger age shift was slightly more but both are very dramatic and the large contributors to the change in margins. Also this analysis shows more of a Black shift than the exit polls with Bidens 2020 margin of +83 shrinking to +67 and also the black vote as a percentage of voters shrank slightly.
https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2024/votecast/