WATCH: What’s driving young Democrats?

CHICAGO – Standing with fellow delegates on the floor of this year’s Democratic National Convention, Georgia delegate Cameron Landin reflected on what makes him hopeful – that young people are “hungry for change in this country.”
“We need young people to get involved,” Landin said
The 21-year-old said that delegates like himself “can empower the young people across the United States who are hungry for change and who believe that things can be better than they are.”
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Young voters – under the age of 35 – are a key group both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump’s campaigns are trying to reach during this election cycle. The latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, conducted in early August, shows a tight race for those under age 35 at this point in the campaign, with 50 percent of respondents choosing Harris and 48 percent choosing Trump – well within the margin of error.
“The contrast between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris cannot be more clear,” said Parker Short, a Georgia delegate and recent University of Michigan graduate. “Honestly, I try and be frank with everybody. It doesn’t even get into the red or blue of how you feel about a lot of issues. This is about our Constitution and our country. Donald Trump came to the Republican secretary of state and Republican governor of Georgia, and tried to bully them into overthrowing our elections.”
While democracy was top of mind for many young delegates who spoke with PBS News, other issues are also driving their votes this November.
“Cost-of-living issues are way up there for young people,” said West Virginia delegate Kathryn Prather, 18. “We’re trying to look into our futures [and] be like, ‘Will I ever be able to afford a house?’”
Sarah Arveson, 31, a California delegate and United Auto Workers member, said one of her top issues relates to her profession.
“A lot of the work I do, and a lot of the work that UAW members care about, revolves around this transition from dirty energy internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles and clean energy,” she said. “One of my huge priorities is making sure this transition is truly a just transition – that it’s worker-led.”
For Prather, she said she finds hope in the kindness of others – despite the divisiveness that certain issues present.
“Abortion is just incredibly dividing as an issue,” she said. “When those issues are so powerful, I think it’s really important that empathy and kindness really just overruns it all, and we look and realize that more than one thing can be true at the same time. Our perspectives do not necessarily need to be the exact same for us to move forward as a country.”