Fewer than a quarter of Americans under age 30 say they follow politics in the United States closely. With that stat often comes the assumption that young people are simply politically unmotivated and uninformed. But what if the story goes deeper?
That’s what Glynn Boltman, SNF Paideia Fellow (C’26), set out to explore when she interviewed 65 young voters in swing states across the country. Her findings, which she later turned into a podcast series, challenge common assumptions about political disengagement, while suggesting a need for more empathy in how Americans think about participation in politics.
The Polling Problem
Boltman, a fellow in the SNF Paideia program, has been interested in politics since she was young, a fascination she traces, in part, back to growing up in Reno, Nevada, a politically mixed city in a key swing state. Her work on the 2024 presidential election with the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies (PORES) gave her a front-row seat to elections analysis in real time.
“Sitting in that room and watching the results come in, it became clear that shifts in the engagement of young voters were having a huge impact on the race,” she says.
But that also raised a critical question: How accurate can election predictions be if surveys aren’t capturing large groups of people, especially young voters? Many surveys struggle to reach that demographic, according to the Brookings Institute, which can make predicting political outcomes in those age groups challenging.
“If a very, very narrow percentage of Americans are actually responding to those polls, then our democracy isn’t working as well as we want it to,” Boltman says. “Only certain people’s voices are being heard.”
Politics as Identity
With that in mind, Boltman designed a research project that took a different approach than typical polls. Instead of trying to reach thousands of respondents, she traveled to three swing states—Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Nevada—and aimed to have deep conversations about politics with young people in everyday settings. She selected politically diverse urban, suburban, and rural areas using precinct-level voting maps, then went to places like grocery stores, gas stations, laundromats, and public transit stops to strike up conversations.
The 18- to 30-year-olds she spoke with were diverse in race, gender, and socioeconomic background. Boltman intentionally sought out groups that are traditionally harder to reach in surveys, particularly non-white Americans and those without a college education. They worked in jobs like construction, food service, delivery, and retail, or were students or in fields like nursing and cosmetology.
The process wasn’t easy. Boltman says she approached more than 400 people. “I think I got rejected by five times the amount of people who actually made it into the podcast,” she says. But she counts herself lucky. Meeting so many people from such different corners of the country, she says, was one of the most rewarding parts of the project.
When she did find people willing to talk, the conversations were telling. Even some who initially said they weren’t interested in politics spoke with her for more than an hour. When Boltman analyzed her interviews, a clear pattern emerged: For many young people, being political was a type of identity—and not necessarily one they wanted to bear. “Being a political person actually has a lot of really negative connotations for this group,” Boltman says.
What’s more, in a polarized environment, identifying as “political” can feel limiting or even risky, that it will invite judgment or close people off from certain communities, she explains. “Young people are not disengaged because they’re lazy,” she adds. “There are real reasons, and they’re making intentional choices.”
Making Research Heard
Boltman ultimately turned her interviews into a podcast series, a decision shaped, in part, by a podcasting course she took at Penn and by her own interest in conversation as a tool for understanding. The format, she says, allows listeners to hear directly from people they might otherwise not agree with, a process that fosters familiarity in a way that written summaries or survey data don’t.
“It’s a lot easier to empathize with somebody who you disagree with when you can hear their voice,” Boltman says.
If a very, very narrow percentage of Americans are actually responding to those polls, then our democracy isn’t working as well as we want it to. Only certain people’s voices are being heard.
She adds that she hopes listeners of the series—which is supported, in part, by the SNF Paideia program—come away with a more nuanced understanding of why young people disengage and a reconsideration of how to respond. Pressuring participation may actually push them further away, she says. “The more we shout about politics and tell people that they should be engaged, the less accessible politics becomes.”
As she wraps up her time at Penn, Boltman continues to explore questions of identity and politics in her undergraduate thesis, which examines how federal systems distribute power over immigrant integration. She’s interested in public policy and hopes to pursue a PhD in the future after Penn, where she’s still focused on conversations—including hosting the College of Arts & Sciences podcast, “College Voices,” which connects students with campus opportunities and resources.
Boltman’s projects all share a common thread: making complex ideas accessible and meaningful beyond academia. “I want to make sure,” she says, “that the people who are affected by politics or who make political decisions have tangible ways to engage with the knowledge that political science is creating.”