Audience: Latino/a/x / Hispanics

Last week, members of the Lab team had the pleasure of ringing in the summer at the 2018 GreenLatinos National Summit, a convening of advocates working across the fields of Latino and environmental advocacy. In celebration of the critical work being led by advocates in these fields – from leading the way on intersectional policy fights to providing essential climate disaster relief – this week we highlight the latest on what the Lab community knows about Latinx engagement on climate and clean energy. (Ring a bell? Revisit our best practices* for working with Latino partners coming out of the 2016 summit.)

Based on Spring 2018 polling, this slidedeck summarizes research on how youth audiences (defined here as Millennials and younger) approach electoral politics. 
The authors identify four drivers influencing voting: political understanding, belief in the political system, a sense of civic or personal responsibility to vote, and alignment with the Democratic Party. Conversely, the lack of these drivers (e.g., skepticism of the political system) are among four key barriers to participation identified. The authors also describe four types of mindsets among young eligible voters, one that leads to voting and three that do not. These latter three mindsets may be based on apathy (lack of personal political interest), a revolutionary mentality (distrust of a broken political system), or uncompromising values (refusal to vote for candidates they do not fully support).