Can Pennsylvania’s youngest voters swing the 2024 election? 

Election-year excitement runs high in swing states like Pennsylvania, which has already commanded an outsized slice of each candidate’s attention. By mid-July, Donald Trump visited the state 6 times, while Kamala Harris has recently launched a tour through the battleground state.

This presidential election, Democrats are largely relying on young voters to turn out in swing states. Using data from moveBuddha’s Moving Cost Calculator, we analyzed how domestic moves since the 2020 presidential election might impact the number of young voters in Pennsylvania.

Our findings indicate that cities attracting more new residents than they lose have a higher percentage of 18-24-year-olds compared to the state average.

How young Pennsylvania voters may sway the 2024 election

Could an influx of new young residents make a difference in the electoral college’s most critical swing state come November?

Based on searches for moving assistance since the 2020 presidential election, we found that the Pennsylvania cities that are attracting more new residents than they are losing to out-migration are also cities with a higher percentage of residents aged 18-24 than the statewide average, based on the most recent American Community Survey data.

And while Pennsylvania’s population of 18 to 24-year-olds was practically stagnant from 2020 to 2022 with an increase of just 0.5%, of the cities attracting new residents since the last election the growth rates of residents aged 18-24 is 8.6%.

Increase in the proportion of 18-24 year olds from 2020 to 2022:

18 to 24-year-olds constitute 6% of Pennsylvania’s population statewide. In the state’s top relocation cities that group makes up just 1% more, but amounts to a total of 300,000 18 to 24-year-olds (in 2022). In college towns like State College, this number is as high as 64% of residents.

On our list of PA cities with more searches for moves in than out, those with the highest proportion of residents aged 18-24 are split nearly evenly in terms of registered Democrats and Republicans. However, the cities that attract the highest rates of newcomers are Philadelphia and its suburbs. In addition to having higher rates of young residents than the statewide average, these cities lean heavily Democratic.

The margins are thin in this purple state. In the 2020 race, Pennsylvania’s coveted 20 electoral votes went to Joe Biden by only 80,555 votes. As the nation’s most mobile demographic, young people moving in to, out of, and around Pennsylvania could make all the difference in 2024, especially in college towns and the Philadelphia area.

Which of PA’s top cities to move to since the last election are the youngest?

Of the 141 top cities for inflow in PA, State College, Indiana, and Bloomsburg naturally have the highest number of young people thanks to large local universities. All three have had more in-moves than outbound moves since 2020.

Of the top 25 youngest cities for inbound moves, 14 are in toss-up counties. Starting with State College.

While movers are heading to Democratic and Republican counties (determined by August 2024 voter registration data), the high concentrations of young people in these areas, along with the tendency of young people to move at higher rates than older people, suggest that domestic migration could make these counties bluer.

In cities like State College, that means university students constitute the lion’s share of the county’s votes, making votes from longtime residents in red outlying areas less powerful in local elections.

Sometimes, those college-aged votes can make a difference in state politics. Take Dane County, home of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. As it grew 15% from 2016 to 2020, election outcomes shifted left. Pennsylvania’s Centre County is another example.

Centre County’s voting patterns in the past six presidential elections: 

With just 1069 more registered Democrats than Republicans in State College as of August 2024, the county’s youth vote stands to have the same power in this year’s election, balancing the votes of the more rural areas around it — if the Democrats can energize the youth vote.

570 new Indiana University freshmen can’t wipe out the 12,000+ lead registered Republicans have over their Democrat counterparts, but along with newcomers at Bloomsburg’s Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania, they wield increasing power in the local politics of their areas.

The potential power of young voters in Pennsylvania

How powerful could young Pennsylvania voters be? So powerful that, if they show up to the polls in large numbers, they could sway the entire state.

If all of State College, Indiana, and Bloomsburg’s 18-24-year-olds cast Pennsylvania ballots in November, they’d contribute 66,153 votes this election. And 60%, or 39,692 would be for Harris.

What’s more, about 1 in 8 of the nearly 83,000 students that enrolled in Pennsylvania’s state-owned universities last fall are from out-of-state and constitute potential new voters. If 60% of them vote for Harris, that would be another 6,000 votes towards making Pennsylvania blue.

Pennsylvania has already succeeded in getting out the youth vote, so there’s every reason to believe they can do it again. In 2020, Pennsylvania’s youngest voters turned out at higher rates than in all but ten other states (with 54% of the state’s 18 to 29-year-olds casting a vote) to help Biden into the White House.

While some of Pennsylvania’s population gains have come in Republican suburbs, and young Black voters are becoming more conservative than their parents, blue ballots still vastly outnumber reds among 18 to 24-year-old voters.

And with in-moves favoring more youthful cities, the youth vote stands to make a bigger difference in PA this year than in the last election.

Conclusion

Some of the biggest cities for in-moves in Pennsylvania also have younger populations than the average in the state. So while the state loses population, its college towns are thriving.

If the state swings in the next election, age is set to be one of the X factors that could play a big role. With college towns attracting new residents and young people more engaged in the election than they were in 2020, those votes could play a big role in how PA swings this November.

Methodology

We collected mover search data using moveBuddha’s Moving Cost Calculator from November 4, 2020, to August 8, 2024. This data included searches for both inbound and outbound relocations. We identified 169 Pennsylvania cities with at least 25 searches for both moving into and out of the city.

Identifying the top move-to cities: 

• To determine the most sought-after relocation cities, we calculated the in-to-out move ratio.
• Calculating the in-to-out move ratio: We took the number of searches for moves into a city and divided it by the number of searches for moves out of the city.
• A ratio greater than 1 indicates more searches for moving into the city than moving out.

Out of the 169 cities, 141 had an in-to-out move ratio greater than 1, indicating a net inflow of movers.

Demographic Analysis:

We analyzed U.S. Census demographic data for the years 2010, 2020, and 2022 to assess changes in the state's populations of 18-24 year olds across these top move-to cities.

Of the 141 cities with a favorable in-to-out ratio, we had sufficient demographic data for 122 cities. Among these, 63 cities showed an increase in their populations aged 18-24.

Voter Registration Data:

We referenced county-level voter registration data from August 2024 provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to identify the dominant political party in each county.

This data helped us understand the potential political impact of the youth population in these cities.