WASHINGTON AP - Mairekk Griffiths, a 26-year-old cook in a Denver suburb, doesn't think he'll ever pay a lot of attention to U.S. politics unless radical change happens.
"If another party was likely to win, I'd be interested in that," said Griffiths, who voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year's presidential race but, like many his age, does not see voting as that valuable.
"I can't say either way that voting matters," Griffiths said. "It's just picking the least bad option. That's what I remember my whole life - both sides are bad, but this side is less bad."
Young people such as Griffiths are less engaged with U.S. politics than older Americans and less likely to say voting is important, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Young people - even those who follow politics closely - are less likely to say issues such as the economy, government spending and health care are "extremely important" to them than comparable older adults.
The findings point to a broad sense of disillusionment among younger people about the country's political system - even if, like Griffiths, they still end up casting a ballot. Alberto Medina, who leads the Center for Information and Research on Civic Engagement at Tufts University, which studies youth and politics, noted that turnout among young people hit record levels in the 2020 election and was high last year.