Biden gave young voters a win on student debt, but abortion tops midterm motivations
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's been almost two months since President Biden announced his plan to forgive some student loan debt, which was a campaign pledge to younger voters. Is it enough to get them to show up to the polls and vote for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections? Here's NPR's Elena Moore.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: When Erin Moore started college, she knew she'd take on student debt. But years later, at 25, making loan payments feels much more within her reach. She qualifies for Biden's student debt forgiveness plan.
ERIN MOORE: So that actually will make it feasible for me to pay my loans, which is so much more than I ever thought I was going to be able to do.
ELENA MOORE: But when Moore, who's now a teacher in Philadelphia, thinks about why she's voting in the midterms, it's not because of student loans.
ERIN MOORE: I went into school as an undergrad expecting to never pay off my student loan debt, so this is just extra. But the women's right to choose directly affects me and my family and people I care about.
ELENA MOORE: In other words, she's voting to protect abortion access. Young people may want student loan forgiveness, but looming over this election is the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
SHANNON THOMAS: The climate in the country really scares me, to be honest.
ELENA MOORE: That's 25-year-old Shannon Thomas, Moore's girlfriend. She has federal student loans of her own. She's also a labor and delivery nurse.
THOMAS: I worry about my patients, and I worry about my job and what the future of my job looks like if we don't get protection for women's right to choose in the state.
ELENA MOORE: To political organizers focused on engaging young voters, protecting access to reproductive care has become essential to their mobilizing efforts.
DAKOTA HALL: And it's not to say that other issues are not important, but when you had a constitutionally protected right for so many decades taken away, that impacts so many people in this country. It has to be No. 1 priority.
ELENA MOORE: That's Dakota Hall, the executive director of Alliance for Youth Action, which advocates for progressive policy.
HALL: And ensuring that we get that done doesn't mean we still don't care about passing environmental deals or student loan debt or looking at, like, the economy broadly. And we also care about that, but we know right now what's on the line in this moment.
ELENA MOORE: But that doesn't mean student debt isn't on that line, too. And for some advocates, they want Biden to go even further.
KYRA MITCHELL: I think $10,000 is kind of like, here, we're going to give this to you before midterms so you turn out to vote. But I think it's kind of like, we still need more.
ELENA MOORE: That's Kyra Mitchell, a 23-year-old Michigan voter who's a youth board member of the NAACP. She also has federal student debt and says the issue has stayed a core priority within her organization, given the impact student debt has on Black borrowers. Student debt cancellation, Mitchell says, could have a long-term impact way beyond student loans.
MITCHELL: The racial wealth gap that we have is also influencing a lot of reproductive access and things like that. And so if we can close one gap, we can also influence this other thing and have, like, a domino effect.
ELENA MOORE: To Santiago Mayer, the executive director of Voters of Tomorrow, both student debt relief and abortion access are issues that can have similar messaging. And that message is Republicans want to take away your rights.
SANTIAGO MAYER: It all ties together into this basic message of youth rights and how young people deserve to be able to enjoy their lives in the same sort of way that their parents or grandparents were able to.
ELENA MOORE: And young people feel that. Since Roe was overturned, voter registration has increased among younger voters, notably younger women. That's according to Tom Bonier, the CEO of Target Smart, a Democratic-leaning data firm.
TOM BONIER: Historically, you see voters being more energized in an oppositional sense. It generally tends to organize voters. And to the extent that there's a flip side of that coin, it's generally voters being motivated to protect something.
ELENA MOORE: But as the White House gets ready to roll out their forgiveness plan, some conservative states have challenged them in court. And to Mayer, that could change mobilizing efforts, too.
MAYER: Young people like it when the government acts and listens to them. And if there is one thing young people do not like, it's the government doing something and then the court taking it away.
ELENA MOORE: So young organizers have major issues mobilizing their generation. Now they just have to vote.
Elena Moore, NPR News.
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