A small—but significant—surge of young people say they feel politically empowered, in the latest Youth Political Pulse survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV.
A slim majority, 54 percent, of people ages 15 to 34 continue to believe they have little or no effect on government. But 46 percent now believe they can have at least a moderate effect, a significant increase from two months earlier, when 37 percent said the same.
In that time, students from Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a February shooting killed 17, have succeeded in keeping the gun-safety debate in the news. They joined last week with the HeadCount organization to hold voter-registration drives at 90 percent of the nation’s high schools before this year’s senior class graduates.
The recent rise in political engagement is particularly apparent among ages 15 to 22. The poll found that 48 percent now think they can have at least some effect on the government, after just 33 percent felt that way in March.
