Young voters are more likely to skip the midterm elections this year than the general population. That is typically bad news for Democrats: Research from Harvard University shows that even though they lean Democratic overall, a large share of young voters who are likely to turn up say they're interested in voting Republican.
But if you track how conservative pundits speak about young voters, you can't help but get the feeling they're happy to think that fewer people under the age of 30 will be at the polls.
Jonah Goldberg: Young Voters Are Too 'Frickin' Stupid'
In 2012, National Review editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg said young people are "too frickin' stupid" to vote.
"It is a simple fact of science that nothing correlates more with ignorance and stupidity more than youth," Goldberg said at the time. "We're all born idiots, and we only get over that condition as we get less young."
He further asserted young voters want to live in a socialist rather than a capitalist society. "That's something that conservatives have to work hard to beat out of them, either literally or figuratively, as far as I’m concerned," he said.
Ann Coulter: Raise The Voting Age To 40
Ann Coulter went on record in 2009 to say raising the voting age to 40 would be a good idea.
In 2010, Coulter argued for repealing the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18. Part of her explanation stated that because young people didn't know how their "precious cars run," they are "most likely to oppose offshore drilling." She wrote:
As we have learned from ObamaCare, young people are not considered adults until age 26, at which point they are finally forced to get off their parents' health care plans. The old motto was "Old enough to fight, old enough to vote." The new motto is: "Not old enough to buy your own health insurance, not old enough to vote."
Kimberly Guilfoyle: Doesn't Want Young Women Voting, Or On Juries
Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle said last month that young women shouldn't vote because they "don't get it."
"It's the same reason why young women on juries are not a good idea," Guilfoyle said. "They don't get it!" She added that they are "running around without a care in the world. They can go back on Tinder or Match.com."
Joel Gelernter: 'Let's Suppress Them'
"By and large, 18-year-olds know nothing and shouldn't be voting. Let’s suppress them," wrote Josh Gelernter, a scribe at the National Review and The Weekly Standard.
Gelernter was talking about whether or not voter ID laws suppress voter turnout, and to him, considering the intelligence of young college students, that wasn't a bad thing.
John Stossel: If Random Students Can't Identify This Photo, They Shouldn't Vote
John Stossel explained on ABC's "20/20" in 2008 that because young voters couldn't identify a photo of then-Sen. Joe Biden, they probably shouldn't vote. "So maybe instead of telling people things like 'Rock the Vote,' these groups should say 'Rock or Vote,'" Stossel said.
Conservative economist Bryan Caplan, a member of the Cato Institute, backed up Stossel when was asked, "Isn't it our civic duty to vote?"
"This is very much like saying, 'It's our civic duty to give surgery advice,'" Caplan responded.
Except, there's no Constitutional right to give surgery advice. Stossel has since joined Fox News.
Fox News Hosts: We 'Absolutely Don't' Want Young People Voting
In October, a group of Fox News hosts agreed that having young voters show up at the polls isn't a good idea.
"Do we want [young people] to vote if they don't know the issues?" Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner asked her co-hosts.
"No!" Lisa Kennedy Montgomery answered. "You absolutely don't!"
What prompted this discussion? A "liberal Hollywood" video encouraging young people to vote.