MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Specifically - and believe me when I tell you I've waited years to say this - specifically, I am reporting from Tacos and Tequilas. This is a Mexican joint in Buckhead, northwest Atlanta. And we are here because the Atlanta Young Republicans have gathered to eat chips and salsa and to handwrite postcards.
WINSLOW JONES: Anybody need a drink?
Yeah. Margaritas help, makes it fun. And this is a environment where people can come and connect with like-minded people.
KELLY: That's Winslow Jones, 39 years old, president of Atlanta Young Republicans. And this is the first of three stops we're about to take you on to get a sense of how the youth vote is shaping up in Georgia. Here in Buckhead, the Young Republicans are hoping to get more than a thousand postcards written and addressed, urging voters to support two down-ballot GOP candidates. As for the top of the ticket, Jones told me some of her members love Donald Trump. Others have issues with him.
JONES: I think across the board, there can be mixed feelings about Trump. But I think what we're all united on is, like, this is a much bigger picture here that we need to look at. And I can tell you, young Republicans are worried about the economy and the border and crime and safety - local crime and safety, especially around here.
KELLY: Across the table, the president of the statewide group, Georgia Young Republicans, is here, too. Jacquelyn Harn is 25. I asked whether she and her peers are feeling excited about this third Trump run for the presidency. Short answer - yes.
JACQUELYN HARN: We're excited for a change. And we realize we want the life that we had four years ago, whenever President Trump was president. And his policies, his conservative policies, we need those back, and we want those back to be able to achieve our version of the American dream at the end.
KELLY: For example, Harn says she can't afford to buy a house because she is, quote, "paying rent out the wazoo every month." Harn doesn't see that changing if Kamala Harris wins.
HARN: She's saying, Day 1, she's going to fix the housing crisis and the pricing and inflation. She's had 3 1/2 years to do that, so no one's buying it.
KELLY: Is it hard, though, I asked Harn, to get young voters fired up to vote Republican when the Democratic candidate is relatively young and winning endorsements from big pop stars like Taylor Swift?
HARN: Taylor Swift's a billionaire who doesn't have to worry about how much groceries cost. You can't tell me she relates to the average person around this table tonight. She can't. And so if the best they can do is a celebrity endorsement that is not relatable at all, I don't see what they're doing.
KELLY: All righty. We are rolling up to our next stop. This is going to be at the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign headquarters.
Pizza boxes are stacked on white folding tables. A handful of what look like 20-somethings are busy typing away on laptops. At the front of the room, a screen displays dozens more joining via Zoom.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We have some of our GOTV staff. We have volunteers.
KELLY: This is a joint event co-hosted by Young Democrats of Georgia and Men4Choice. Today's task - text banking.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We just sent out each 1,000 texts.
KELLY: Altogether, they tell me they have fired off 50,000 texts from this gathering. They are aiming them at a very specific group - men of color 27 to 50 years old.
DAVANTE JENNINGS: The backbone of the Democratic Party is the Black vote, which is why Republicans are heavy focused on Black men specifically. And we know when we show up, how elections seem to kind of flip. And right now it's not 100% guaranteed that we're going to get all of the Black vote.
KELLY: That's Davante Jennings, age 28, president of The Young Democrats. He says he is equal parts energized and exhausted at this point in the election cycle. He says the game-changer was when President Biden decided to exit the race.
JENNINGS: When VP Harris announced that she was running, I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. Things just got crazy out of nowhere. Like, more people involved, more support, more work, more canvassing, more text bankings. That is good. That's good.
KELLY: Like a switch flipped in terms of the energy level.
JENNINGS: Oh, yeah.
KELLY: This field office, Harris-Walz HQ, is in Fulton County, which, like much of metro Atlanta, leans blue. Back in 2020, nine counties clustered around Atlanta went for Biden, and young people turning out at the polls had something to do with that, according to political science professor Kerwin Swint.
KERWIN SWINT: Since the Obama years, the youth vote really has sided with the Democratic presidential candidate more often than not. 2020, the turnout was up across the board, partly because of mail-in balloting, making it easier for people to vote. So participation was up, and that was very much true for young voters, who had the highest participation rate in about 20 years.
KELLY: Swint teaches at our final stop, Kennesaw State University. It was National Voter Registration Day when we stopped by campus this week. And the nonpartisan group Poder Latinx had a tent out, handing out pins and stickers and snacks, waving students over, encouraging them to register.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Nice to meet you. Are you up to date with your voter registration?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: No, actually. Oh, that's for national voter registration?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah.
KELLY: It seemed to be working. The group managed to register 81 voters. And as we listened, we got a taste of what is on Gen Z voters' minds this election.
YAHIR RODRIGUEZ: Immigration, education, the economy, and I think, like, housing, too.
KELLY: That's Yahir Rodriguez (ph). He's a first-year student at Kennesaw State and a first-generation voter whose parents immigrated from Mexico. He belongs to a growing demographic in the state. Almost 10% of Georgia's population is Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2020 Census. Rodriguez says housing is an especially important issue for him and other young voters.
RODRIGUEZ: We see that rent prices are going up and, like, how housing is getting expensive everywhere. We're seeing that there are more and more corporate landlords, and that's raising the housing prices for, like, everyone around us. And even if you want to buy a home, that's also raising the prices and everything.
KELLY: He says he's excited to vote for Kamala Harris this November. Other young voters we met on campus were less enthusiastic, like 19-year-old Ambiance Jackson (ph).
AMBIANCE JACKSON: Honestly, they both have bad policies.
KELLY: Jackson says she will be voting for Harris this November, that the overturning of Roe v. Wade makes that an easy choice for a young woman of color like herself. But she adds there's room for improvement if Harris wants to win over other young voters.
JACKSON: Kamala - she doesn't really explain her policies as well. Like, she mainly talks about tax cuts for middle class, but, like, she doesn't really have policies.
KELLY: And then Jackson said something we have heard from a few people in this battleground state - that November 5 cannot come fast enough.
JACKSON: I'm ready for it to be over. That's what I'm ready for. I'm ready for the results to come out so, you know, we can just proceed from there, whatever happens.
KELLY: Ambiance Jackson, one of the young voters we have been chatting with here in Georgia who will be helping determine how Georgia's crucial electoral votes swing come November.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Mary Louise's trip to Atlanta is part of our ongoing We, the Voters series. Her producers in Atlanta are Erika Ryan and Kira Wakeam. Her producer in Washington is Alejandra Marquez Janse. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
