New voters cast ballots, but new, younger residents not getting involved yet
By LEADER STAFF
A breakdown of the 6,300 who voted in last Tuesday’s primary reveals that 45% of those voters did not vote in 2019.
In addition, 2,000 primary votes were cast by voters who never voted before.
In other words, new voters who came out for the first time as a category scored a figure that dwarfed all expectations from those who follow vote totals in this city.
A further breakdown of the vote that came out by age is a mind boggler, or at the very least, an eye-brow raiser.
Somewhere between 4%- 9% of the vote was made by men and women between the ages of 18-24.
This proves that younger people by the widest margin, take little to no interest in local politics or at least take little to no interest in this primary.
Voters aged 25-34 also showed minor interest in the primary. About 630 voters in that age group voted last Tuesday.
That age group accounted for 10% of the total vote.
This age group includes millennials and the thousands of new residents living in the new apartment developments throughout the city in that age group.
Millennials are those who were born between 1981 and 1996.
Generation X’ers, those born from 1997 onward did a bit better.
They represented about 20% of the vote total.
There is some overlap in these figures.
The vast majority of the vote was over 50.
This is not a surprise to election watchers and campaign architects in this city.
Nearly 33% of the vote were men and women 50-64.
This indicates strongly that voters here tend to be older, have very likely lived here longer, and have stronger ties to the electoral process.
This, however, like the next category, those 65 and older, represent a shrinking part of the core organic Everett vote.
Those 65 and older accounted for 32% of the primary vote.
This was not unexpected by campaign strategists.
For many years, older Everett voters have formed the core of the most sought-after voting public by Everett’s politicians.
In the November 2 finale, those voting over 50 will likely comprise approximately 65% of the vote.
There was no meaningful undecided margin.
Adrien scored one-quarter of the total vote.
Many voters who did not vote in the primary will show up to vote in the November 2nd election.
The mayor has shown himself to do better with newer voters who don’t really know him.