Happy Thursday! With just a few days until the election, we have an election-packed newsletter breaking down the seven bellwether counties to watch on election night, the political affiliations of young men, and the backlash to progressive energy policy.

Edited by Sutton Houser and James Desio

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Topline: Ahead of election night, AEI’s Chris Stirewalt examines seven bellwether counties in seven swing states. While not always predictive of final results, these counties provide insights into key voting constituencies and trends.

The Bellwethers:

• Maricopa County, AZ, and Kent County, MI: Both counties reflect their state’s recent political shift, backing Joe Biden in 2020 and Donald Trump in 2016.

• Ozaukee County, WI; Westmoreland County, PA; and Forsyth County, GA: These solidly Republican counties will indicate GOP turnout in their states. All three counties favored Trump in the past two elections but showed weakened support in 2020.

• Washoe County, NV: This county supported Biden by a margin of 4.5% in 2020 and Clinton by 1.3% in 2016.

• Nash County, NC: The results here will indicate how black voters turnout for Kamala Harris. Nash County narrowly favored Biden by a margin of 0.2% in 2020 and Trump by 1.1% in 2016.

Topline: While young women are becoming more liberal, AEI’s Daniel Cox finds the trends in political affiliation of young men (age 18–29) are more complex.

Political Shift: Democratic affiliation among young men has declined from 51% in 2016 to 39% in 2023. Cox notes, however, that these young men haven’t necessarily become reliably conservative; many express dissatisfaction with both parties.

• A 2023 poll, Cox found that around 40% of young men held unfavorable views of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

But. . . Cox finds that young men are more likely to support Trump over Harris. A recent Pew poll found they were more inclined to believe that Trump’s policies rather than Harris’s would benefit young men.

Topline: Considering Harris’s pivot away from policies like the Green New Deal, AEI’s Ruy Teixeira discusses the electorate's broader rejection of progressive policies on energy production. Rather than ending the use of fossil fuels, a recent NBC poll shows that 67% of voters would prefer a candidate who supports expanding fossil fuel production.

All-of-the-Above: Progressives’ push to rapidly replace fossil fuels with renewable energy was a departure from the previous “all of the above” approach, which included a mix of energy sources. Teixeira points out that this balanced approach remains popular:

• In a recent survey authored with Yuval Levin, Teixeira found 72% of respondents supported a mix of fossil fuels and renewable energy, while only 26% favored a rapid shift to renewables.

• Notably, their survey reveals a divide between working-class and college-educated voters. Working-class voters overwhelmingly support a mixed-energy approach, whereas, white liberal college graduates favor getting rid of fossil fuels.