College students in battleground states could make an election impact with registration decisions

With just about two weeks until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are working to secure votes in key battleground states where polls show a neck-and-neck race — and part of that strategy is appealing to young voters, some of whom may have switched their voter registration to cast ballots in their college towns located in crucial swing states.

College students are usually allowed to register to vote in “either [their] hometown or where [they] attend college,” depending on state residency requirements, according to vote.gov.

As a result, some students have chosen to register under the address that gives their ballot the most impact, particularly when one of their residences is located in a swing state.

And those votes could potentially make a difference. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found the candidates to be tied in the seven battleground states, with 49% for Harris and 49% for Trump.

Given these incredibly tight margins in key battlegrounds, both candidates are fighting for every vote where they can.

“We’ve seen dozens of elections up and down the ballot over the course of the last few years that have been decided by as close as one vote,” said Clarissa Unger, co-founder and executive director of Students Learn Students Vote Coalition, a nonpartisan national network dedicated to increasing student voter participation.

“Every single college student’s vote can be consequential,” Unger told ABC News.

How are students exercising this right?

Speaking on behalf of ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, a nonpartisan initiative that promotes college civic engagement, its executive director Jen Domagal-Goldman explained the motivations behind students’ voting decisions.

“We know there are a few key factors that students likely consider as they’re determining where they want to register to vote or if they want to update their voter registration,” Domagal-Goldman told ABC News.

She said “what’s on the ballot” and “where [students] think their vote might count the most for the presidency” are prominent motivators for college students.

She added that students are also influenced by local elections, and many choose to vote in the state that they identify with the most.

Julia Levine, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Pennsylvania, told ABC News that she changed her voter registration from her home state of New York to her college state of Pennsylvania, one of the crucial battleground states in the presidential race.

“For this upcoming general election, my decision to change my registration to [Pennsylvania] was based on impact and also ease,” she said. “My hometown elections tend to go one way or another without much swing, so I thought my vote would count more in a swing state.”

It’s expected to be a close race in Pennsylvania: it went for Trump by more than 44,000 votes in 2016 before President Joe Biden took it back by more than 80,000 votes in 2020. Trump leads Harris by .4 points in Pennsylvania, according to 538’s polling average in the state.

Levine also works with Penn Leads the Vote (PLTV), a student-run, nonpartisan organization that seeks to increase voter engagement on campus. She told ABC News that many of her peers had the same idea to intentionally vote in a swing state.

According to PLTV, about 75% of the school’s enrollment rate is registered to vote, totaling about 17,000-18,000 students. Among the students originally registered out of state, Levine estimated more than half have changed their registration to their college state of Pennsylvania. The organization was not able to offer specifics on the number of students who changed their registration to Pennslyvania.

Alyssa Lopez, a senior at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, told ABC News that she is a first-time voter, and she became motivated because she is casting her ballot in a battleground state.

Originally from New Jersey, Lopez said there “was no question” that she would register to vote in her college state of Georgia rather than her hometown because she wanted her vote to make a “true impact.”

After seeing abortion laws become stricter in the state of Georgia through the recent years she has lived there, Lopez realized how much was at stake during this election and she “wanted to make a difference.”

The race in Georgia is expected to be tight once again after Trump won the state in 2016, but Biden flipped it in 2020 — turning the reliably red state blue by roughly 12,000 votes of more than 5 million cast.

Trump is currently ahead of Harris in Georgia by 1.6 points, according to the 538 polling average in the state.

Kyle Nitschke, the co-executive director of the nonpartisan, student-led organization Arizona Students’ Association, which represents Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona, said that the association helped more than 3,000 young adults register to vote in the swing state of Arizona this election cycle.

About half of these registrations came from students not originally from battleground Arizona, he added.

“We had many students come up to us over the last few months excited to get registered in Arizona where they will be living for the next few years, be present during major elections and where they have more of an impact,” Nitschke told ABC News. “Students know the impact that they will have on deciding the next president of the United States and the future senator of Arizona.”

According to 538’s polling average, Trump is leading by 1.9 points in the state of Arizona.

History of voting on campus

A 1979 Supreme Court case, Symm v. United States, affirmed that college students have a constitutional right to register and vote where they attend college.

The 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act also requires universities to make voter registration information and access readily available for students on campus.

Both Unger and Domagal-Goldman pointed out that adults with multiple homes in different states also face a similar decision when deciding where to vote. They must choose one location to declare as their primary residence where they will cast a ballot — and if one of these homes is located in a swing state, they may prefer to vote from there.

Domagal-Goldman recognized that “there may be strategy at play for some particular students or some particular voters,” but she says it’s important to remember that these are “full-fledged adults who have the right to vote and who can choose within a specific set of legal guidelines.”

“[College students] bring vibrancy, innovation, economic opportunities to their campuses and the surrounding communities and their institutions,” Unger said. “College students also bear the consequences of the public officials and government offices that oversee their schools and the communities that they reside in, and so they have the right to have a say in who governs the communities where they spend … a majority of their year while attending school.”

Continued youth outreach

When it comes to young voters across the entire country, the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School recently found Harris to be significantly ahead of Trump.

Harris’ support among this demographic has been building since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July.

Within 48 hours of Biden announcing his withdrawal from the race, CEO of Vote.org Andrea Hailey cited a 700% spike in voter registrations, particularly from 18-34-year-old voters in battleground states.

“Some of the states that were affected were Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin — so this is about to make everything very, very interesting,” Hailey told NewsNation last month.

Harris recently applauded young voters for their efforts.

“Your generation is killing it, I mean, honestly,” Harris said on a youth organizing call last month. “You are one of the reasons that I am so optimistic and excited about the future of our country, your generation.”

Her campaign launched a “Back to School” initiative over the summer, which targeted 150 college campuses with a focus on those in battleground states, in addition to a Youth Vote Week of Action following National Registration Day last month. They continue to target students on battleground campuses with digital, newsletter and flyer ads as well as text messages encouraging voter registration, the campaign told ABC News.

Recognizing the power celebrities hold over America’s youth, Harris appeared alongside singer Lizzo in Michigan on Saturday, in addition to campaigning with singer Usher in Georgia later that evening.

For his part, Trump has used celebrity endorsements such as television personality Amber Rose and Barstool Sports Founder Dave Portnoy to connect with younger audiences.

He has also turned to podcasters as a way to reach a diverse group of younger listeners, too.

Appearing on a Barstool podcast episode of “Bussin’ with the Boys” released last week, Trump worked to relate to the younger audience by touting the number of views he generates on shows and using sports analogies. Trump also attended the Steelers-Jets’ football game on Sunday.

The candidates have both been very active on social media, embracing memes and engaging in online trends.