Faced with Joe Biden's historically low approval ratings as the 2024 election draws ever closer, Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill are looking to channel frustration over unpopular Supreme Court decisions to boost youth turnout and increase their party's chances in the 2024 selection.
The June 29 decision on affirmative action, which prevents colleges from considering race in admissions, stands as one of several rulings by the conservative-majority Court that has reversed previously settled law, including the striking down of Roe v. Wade.
"There's certainly a lot of decisions that the Supreme Court has made that are going to motivate voters to come out to vote," Michigan Senator and Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Gary Peters told Newsweek. "It's clear who's on the Supreme Court makes a big difference to people, and I think that is going to have an impact on turnout."
Democrats hope the unpopularity of these decisions help them overcome the low popularity of President Joe Biden, whose approval rating sits at a net -13.4%, (41.2% approval, 54.5% disapproval) in a July 19 summary of polls from the survey aggregation site Five Thirty-Eight.
At the same point in first-term presidencies dating back some 75 years to Harry Truman, according to Five Thirty-Eight, only Democrat Jimmy Carter had a lower approval rating (29.0%) than Biden's 41.2% after 911 days, although Donald Trump was a close third with 42.6%. Both Carter and Trump lost their bids for a second term in the following year's election.
But Democrats are hoping the Supreme Court's decisions will boost their turnout.
In the 2020 election won by Joe Biden, 55 percent of voters aged 18 to 29 voted in the election—the highest turnout in this age group since 1972, according to the analytics firm Statista.
A 2020 analysis of this age group by Tufts University's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement found that young voters of color were key to Biden's success, with 73% of Latino voters and 87% of Black voters supporting him.
Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn, a progressive organizing group, argues that the ending of affirmative action as well as conservative opposition to the Biden administration's student loan cancelation will also motivate young voters, especially young voters of color, to support Biden in 2024.
"The Supreme Court's MAGA Majority has systematically targeted these groups by reversing President Biden's student loan relief plan and by striking down affirmative action," Epting told Newsweek. "Young voters, and particularly, young voters of color, showed up in 2020 and 2022 for the Biden/Harris ticket, and their allies and they will both be key cornerstones of the Biden/Harris coalition in 2024,"
While Biden's popularity numbers remain in the negative, the net favorability of the three liberal Supreme Court Justices rose in the aftermath of the Affirmative Action strike-down. Progressives like Epting are banking on the conservative agenda being seen as even less desirable.
But Republican Senator Josh Hawley said that Republicans offer a popular alternative to the progressive agenda.
"I think that what Republicans have to do for all voters is show that we actually have a platform that is good for them," Hawley told Newsweek. "That is something that crosses ethnic lines, but it's vital for all people who are working class, which is most of this country."
