The day after President Joe Biden decided to pardon marijuana smokers, the 79-year-old walked into a bookstore on the University of Pennsylvania campus with his granddaughter. One voice in the crowd outside shouted out: “Yo Joe, legalize that weed.”
The Friday evening episode encapsulates the dilemma facing Biden on the heels of a headline-grabbing announcement that seems tailor-made to fire up young voters and Black Americans. He has to energize two lifelines for Democrats who tend not to show up for midterm elections but whose support are critical to his party, and indeed his own chances at reelection in 2024.
These voters carried the president to victory in 2020 with near record turnout. In that election, 60% of young people cast their ballots for Biden as did an overwhelming 87% of Black people, according to exit polling data by Edison Research. But an NPR/Marist poll taken at the end of September shows the least likely respondents to say they were definitely voting in the Nov. 8 midterm elections were Black voters, Gen Zers and millennials.
