For young voters, "hope and change" is dead

Their attitudes are in keeping with polls that find that Clinton’s support from the younger generation is lacking, despite young voters’ distaste for Trump. As Ron Brownstein recently noted, Millennials’ skepticism about Clinton—and whether she can convert them—could be the election’s deciding factor. Recognizing that fact, Clinton has recently redoubled her outreach to Millennials, giving a speech aimed at the cohort here last month. She’s also aggressively deploying surrogates ranging from Sanders to John Legend, who is scheduled to appear at college campuses in Ohio this weekend urging students to register and vote.

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Some liberal Millennials have so internalized Sanders’ onetime critique of Clinton’s character—that she’s just another cog in a corrupt machine—that they are implacably opposed to her. That was the case for one focus-group participant, Amanda, a 27-year-old human-resources worker who’s also a single mother enrolled in a holistic-health certificate program. Amanda’s description of Clinton: “Bitch, liar, false.” She’s planning to vote for Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

Amanda’s attitudes were partly driven by disillusion with Obama, whom she voted for. “I’m just not pumped about what he did while he was in office,” she said. “I feel like a lot of stuff crumbled while he’s been in there.” Her excitement about Obamacare, she said, has given way to dismay at her rising health-insurance premiums and deductibles.

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