Influential Youth Groups Promise To Spend $100M In November Mobilizing The Youth Vote, Ask For Biden's Support

Shortly after Bernie Sanders dropped out of the 2020 presidential race, a coalition of seven influential youth groups in the progressive movement sent a list of policy demands to Joe Biden, promising $100 million to spend up mobilizing youth turnout and down the ballot this fall.

Alliance for Youth Action, Justice Democrats, IfNotNow Movement, March for Our Lives Action Fund, NextGen America, Student Action, United We Dream Action and the Sunrise Movement asked for a $10 trillion Green New Deal stimulus package, a plan to reduce gun violence by 50% in ten years, support for a plan to have the government manufacture generic versions of drugs, free undergraduate tuition for public colleges, a wealth tax, amongst a few other progressive policies.

They also asked the former Vice President to add staff who worked on not only the Sanders and Elizabeth Warren campaigns, but from other progressives around the country like Washington Governor Jay Inslee and progressive Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. The group highlighted the political problem facing Biden in an accompanying statement, asserting that “as documented in extensive polling and a number of primary contests, Biden struggles to garner the support of voters under 45 years old, while Bernie Sanders’ base is made primarily of voters under 45.

On Super Tuesday, Biden won only 17 percent of voters under 45. Bernie Sanders won voters under 30 in Michigan and Missouri by 76 points and 57 points respectively, according to exit polls. Democratic voters under 45 tend to be more progressive than their older counterparts.”

To try to help address this issue for Biden whether or not he adds these demands to his platform, the group pledges to spend “more than $100 million communicating with more than 10 million young members, supporters, and potential voters this election cycle."