Poll: Racial vulnerability linked to youth vote choice

WASHINGTON (AP) — Among the youngest white adult Americans, feelings of racial and economic vulnerability appear to be closely connected to their support for Donald Trump in last month's election.

Among young people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, feelings toward President Barack Obama and about the way the government is working were related to support for Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

The pre-election survey data comes from a GenForward poll conducted by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

[...] both young whites and young Latinos who felt that blacks need to work their way up in society without special favors and haven't been significantly held back by racial discrimination were more likely to vote for Trump.

Both of those attitudes were closely linked with feelings of racial vulnerability among young whites, and those feelings of vulnerability had the strongest relationship with choosing to vote for Trump when all three attitudes were analyzed together.

The surveys show that feelings about the political system were linked to vote choices among young people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds.