Kellyanne Conway said Democrats could turn the youth vote into a 'turnout machine,' warning the GOP shouldn't just 'wait for the young to get old'
- Kellyanne Conway is worried Democrats are close to turning the youth vote into a "turnout machine."
- The former Trump advisor told Fox News that the GOP needs to work to shift youth votes to the right.
Former Trump White House senior counselor Kellyanne is worried that Democrats could turn young people into a "turnout machine" that will hurt Republicans at the ballot box.
During a Monday segment of Fox News Channel's "The Ingraham Angle," host Laura Ingraham lambasted President Joe Biden over his efforts to recruit social media influencers to promote his policies, and she specifically mentioned the video app TikTok, which is highly popular among Gen Z voters but has been subject to widespread GOP criticism over what conservatives allege are its parent company's ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
But Conway said that Biden's move was a "smart strategy," while also arguing that the Democratic Party was getting too strong of a hold over young Americans and adding that Republicans needed to work harder to shift the youth vote to the right.
"The Republican Party cannot wait for the young to get old and the single to get married to find new voters," she said, while also claiming the the GOP had "already won the the policy arguments" on the economy and education, as well as several other issues.
"Maybe we've got work to do on the young people who think differently on abortion, perhaps, or guns or climate change, but even there, the Democrats' messages are usually cynical," she continued. "The thing I'm really concerned about with this ... is that the left becomes a turnout machine with young people."
Conway went on to explain how influencers can play a critical role when it comes to voting and engagement.
"Influencers have this domino effect, lemming-like effect, of people just all wanting to be part of the same crowd and if they succeed in that way, we're not doing a great job competing for ballots. We're just competing for votes," she told Ingraham.
"Our candidates lost the early voting miserably last time. Someone like Dr. Oz lost the early vote to John Fetterman by 4-1," she continued, remarking on last year's Pennsylvania Senate race. "We need to compete for ballots, not just voters and not just minds, and I think they're trying to do that with these influencers."
In the lead-up to the 2022 midterms, Republicans were expected to make major gains across in Congress, buoyed by dissatisfaction over the economy. But Democrats expanded their Senate majority and minimized losses in the House, boosted by the votes of Americans aged 18 to 29, who overwhelmingly backed the party's top candidates in critical states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
While many Republicans, led by former President Donald Trump, railed against early voting after the 2020 election, Democrats leaned into mail-in voting while also remaining focused on turning out supporters to cast early ballots.
Ingraham then stated that "it seems like the Republicans are always playing catch up" with early voting and she questioned Conway about whether the GOP would work to boost their early voting operation in 2024.
"The answer is 'yes,'" Conway replied. "Many of the voters on the Republican side have gotten mixed messages from some of the candidates themselves. They have sowed doubt about machines or don't like mail-in ballots or don't trust it."
The ex-White House advisor then railed against the some of the election-related measures that were put into place permanently after the coronavirus pandemic, a point that she previously made in January after criticizing how some states now offer over a month of early voting.
"If this is the new normal, let's get a little bit more normal," she said. "You cannot catch up on Election Day when there's been a month of early voting."