Former Vice President Kamala Harris has expressed support for reducing the minimum voting age to 16.
In an interview published on The Diary Of A CEO YouTube channel, Harris said, “I think we should reduce the voting age to 16,” explaining her reasoning by referencing the younger generation’s lived experience.
“I’ll tell you why. Gen Z — roughly ages 13 through 27 — has only ever known the climate crisis,” Harris said. “If they’re in high school or college, especially in college, it’s very likely that whatever they’ve chosen as their major may not lead to an affordable wage. They’ve coined the term ‘climate anxiety.’”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed back against Harris’s remarks, firmly rejecting the proposal.
“No,” DeSantis wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “Also, suffering from ‘climate anxiety’ is not exactly an argument for lowering the voting age.”
While Harris supports allowing younger Americans to vote, she has previously argued for increasing the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21.
“We can’t fail the American people on gun violence anymore,” Harris wrote in 2022 on the “Vice President Kamala Harris Archived” X account. “It’s time for the Senate to do something. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Raise the age to purchase guns from 18 to 21. Strengthen background checks. Let’s get this done.”
