ATLANTA — Asher Clarke and Sanzia Pearman, seniors at Spelman College, were emotionally rocked last year when they heard that the federal right to an abortion had been overturned by the Supreme Court.
Within their community, “you could just see the shock, the anger,” Clarke said recently.
The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, said Pearman, was a moment that caused her to second-guess democracy.
“It’s so crazy how so many politicians are speaking on our behalf but aren’t talking to us,” Pearman said. “We can’t leave our future in the hands of people who aren’t us, that’s why it’s so important that Black voters, young voters in general speak their mind, register to vote, and tick the right box.”
The 2024 election will mark the voting debut of a generation of college students who grew into adulthood during a tumultuous decade of American politics and are quickly becoming key to victories nationally, especially in swing states like Georgia.
Interviews with two dozen students from historically Black colleges and universities in Atlanta, many of whom were on the campus of Morehouse College for a recent event featuring Vice President Kamala Harris, show they have been galvanized by national politics, and recognize their powerful role in the electorate.
Like many of her peers, Sydney Smith, a second-year student at Spelman, understands that the demographic she belongs to is set to be a key voting bloc — if only candidates take the time to listen to their concerns and get them fired up.
“Young Black voters have a lot of power in this next election,” Smith said. “If we turn out, that’s a thing. There’s so many of us, we have such strong opinions, and we’re growing as a community. And so as we get older and there are more of us who are able to vote, I think it will make a lot of change.”
The exact details of what that presidential matchup will look like have yet to be determined: President Biden and Harris are running for reelection, but a GOP primary that former president Donald Trump is leading is still playing out. Despite being at the beginning of the electoral process, students expressed some fatigue.
“This election . . . is so polarized right now, I’m not sure if the real issues really matter at this point because, like, if you’re a Democrat you’re just trying to make sure Trump doesn’t get into office,” said Paul Sprowl, a junior at Morehouse College. “Even though I like the vice president and the president, there are things that I feel like are getting put on the back burner right now just for the sake of making sure we stay in the White House.
“I feel like voters in general aren’t excited about this election,” he said.
But here, urgency is often more deeply felt than excitement due to the constant reminders of how the federal government’s action — or inaction — affects them. Whether Democrats can harness the power of a generation that they can’t take for granted is an open question, at a time when there are worries of erosion in support from some of the key parts of Biden and Harris’s winning coalition.
According to an analysis of AP VoteCast data by Tufts’ Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, nationally 87 percent of Black voters between ages 18 and 29 supported Biden and Harris in the 2020 election. Black voters in those same age ranges with some college education and who had bachelor’s degrees supported them at 86 percent and 88 percent respectively.
There are more than 240,000 registered Black voters between 18 and 24 in Georgia, out of a total 7.9 million registered voters statewide, according to data available on the secretary of state’s website from February 2023. Georgia’s electoral shift to blue, which helped deliver Biden the White House in 2020, was determined by fewer than 12,000 votes.
Harris recently made Morehouse a stop for her “Fight for Our Freedoms” college tour, an effort to mobilize young voters.
“Your generation is, I think, a very special one. You all have experienced so much already,” Harris said, ticking through the climate crisis, the pandemic’s disruption of education, active shooter drills, and the murder of George Floyd. “One of the ways that you’re also going to make a difference in our country and this world is to vote. And so I’m also here to remind you of the power of your vote, the importance of registering to vote, and then voting.”
In August, the Biden-Harris campaign announced a 16-week, $25 million ad buy, which it said included the “largest, earliest investment in Hispanic and African American media for a reelection in history.” The ad buy targeted voters in swing states; the Biden campaign was unable to say how much was spent specifically on outreach to Black voters.
The Democratic National Committee also touted its “sustained” outreach to and investment in Black voters, throughout the 2022 cycle and into this year. “Everything that we are doing this year helps not only with this year’s elections, but 2024 as well,” said Tracy Falon King, a spokesperson for the DNC, in an email.
King pointed to “targeted outreach through our distributed organizing programs” in key 2023 races, like the state Supreme Court race centered around abortion rights in Wisconsin, ballot initiatives also centered around abortion in Ohio, and the upcoming gubernatorial race in Kentucky where the Democratic incumbent is up for reelection. DNC chair Jaime Harrison has gone to Howard University, a HBCU in Washington, D.C., as part of outreach to young Black voters.
“I know that Biden was trying to do something with student loans. I think talking about that again would definitely be beneficial for college-age students since debt is really hard,” said Gabriella Wiggins, a freshman at Clark Atlanta University. “And just being able to understand that not everything is about the older generation.”
Wiggins said she thinks Biden and Harris are doing an “efficient” job of reaching out to young Black voters, in particular given Harris’s tour of campuses. But that was not necessarily a widespread sentiment.
“Overall with their initiatives, I do feel like they could improve,” said Randal Burks, a senior at Spelman. “I haven’t heard anything too significant, especially as a person who uses social media. And in the things that are being promoted, I haven’t seen much change or anything like that.”
Laila Johnson, a first-year student at Spelman, said she wanted to be at the Harris event to show support. But as she waited in line to get in, she said Harris and Biden weren’t doing enough to reach out to young Black voters.
“I think this is why this initiative is so important,” Johnson said of the Harris event. “Because even if they are having different initiatives to reach out to Black voters, or young Black voters in particular, it doesn’t seem like that from our standpoint, so there seems to be a disconnect in communication there.”
The week of midterm exams, Joshua Williams, a junior at Morehouse, sat working on his laptop on a concrete table. He said part of his reason for choosing to go to school in Georgia was because he knew his vote would hold more weight.
“We can change certain outcomes,” said Williams of young Black voters. “We could probably change an entire outcome. Once you understand that voting power, that collectivism ideology, it can be very powerful.”
Lissandra Villa Huerta can be reached at lissandra.villa@globe.com. Follow her @LissandraVilla.