Biden losing support with key voters following failed attempts to thwart Supreme Court

While he ran for president in 2020, Joe Biden vowed to make student debt cancellation a top priority of his administration. However, Biden has since hit several roadblocks impeding progress on that front, frustrating several young voters whose support would be crucial to the president’s reelection next year.

For young voters between 18 and 29, their disappointment over Biden’s failure to cancel student loan debt has further ignited their overall negative sentiment toward the economy at large, which has become a top election issue heading into the 2024 cycle. The crucial voting bloc says they trust Republicans to handle the economy over Democrats, according to a recent survey by ABC News and Ipsos, dealing a blow to Biden as he attempts to use his economic policies as a key messaging point next year.

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Another poll from the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School earlier this year found that 70% of voters between the ages of 18-29 rate the current state of the economy as either “very bad” or “fairly bad,” spelling more trouble for Biden. And much of that disappointment comes from the president’s failure to forgive student loan debt like he once promised on the campaign trail.

Biden initially announced a plan to forgive student loan debt for 43 million Americans last year, with borrowers getting anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000 in loans canceled depending on their income. However, that plan was thwarted by the Supreme Court, which ruled the plan was unconstitutional last summer, leaving Biden with an even narrower path forward to achieve student debt reform.

“In terms of a massive, broken promise? Yeah, I think that definitely negatively impacts how I feel toward him,” Ashley Robinson, a D.C.-based consultant, told ABC News. “[He is] just simply not as progressive as I’ve needed it to be.”

“I genuinely believe that this is Biden’s best,” she added, “but I don’t believe that Biden’s best is sufficient.”

That kind of sentiment could harm Biden’s chances with young voters; about 12% of youth voters put student loan debt cancellation in their top three issues, according to a recent CIRCLE survey from November.

However, the Biden administration has explored other ways to provide student loan relief, with more than 3.6 million people receiving some sort of relief since Biden took office, equaling a total of $132 billion. The president has plans to try and implement other debt relief policies ahead of the 2024 elections, but those plans could also be halted by courts.

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Those efforts, even if they are stalled by legal challenges, could help secure support from some young voters who acknowledge enacting widespread student loan reform would be a challenge for any candidate.

“I really fault him 0%,” Michael Stewart, a student loan borrower who voted for Biden in 2020, told ABC News. “He did all he could.”