First-Time Voters Statistics 2026 | Newly Eligible Voters, Ages 18–19, Registration Growth & Key Facts

How many first-time voters registered for the 2026 midterms? A CIRCLE analysis of voter file data as of October 19, 2026 found 8% more newly eligible voters aged 18 to 19 registered than at the same point before the 2022 midterms, across the 22 states with reliable data, and 19 of those 22 states recorded an increase. South Carolina (+177%), Tennessee (+85%), Indiana (+65%) and Alabama (+38%) posted the largest jumps, while registration for the wider 18-to-29 group rose only 3% and CIRCLE’s early estimate puts overall youth turnout in the 2026 midterms at 27%.

First-Time Voters 2026 – Introduction

First-time voters statistics are among the most closely watched numbers in any election cycle, because 18- and 19-year-olds are the group that has always voted at the lowest rate. In 2022, only 18% of 18- and 19-year-olds voted in the midterms, compared with 24% of people aged 20 to 29. Registration is the first test of whether a new class of voters is engaged, and in 2026 that test looked better than it did four years ago.

The numbers come with caveats. Reliable age-specific voter file data for 18- and 19-year-olds exists in only 22 states, percentage changes can look dramatic in small states, and registering is not the same as voting. This report covers newly eligible voters, registration by state, race and gender, the comparison with the wider 18-to-29 group, and what early turnout and exit poll data say about how young voters behaved, one data table at a time.

Interesting Facts About First-Time Voters in 2026

CHANGE IN YOUTH VOTER REGISTRATION VS 2022
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ages 18-19 (22 states)    ████████  +8%
Ages 18-29 (42 states)    ███       +3%
September 2026, 18-29     ██        +2%
September 2026, 18-19     ◄█        -1%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Source: CIRCLE at Tufts University, One Week Away: Registrations Surge Among Newly Eligible Voters, October 27, 2026; CIRCLE, 49 Million Young People Will Be Eligible to Vote in the 2026 Midterms.

The first five rows show the registration surge. Among 18- and 19-year-olds, registration was 8% above 2022 across the 22 states with reliable data, and 19 of those states recorded an increase. Only Kansas, Texas and New Jersey fell. The surge reversed September’s reading, when 1% fewer 18- and 19-year-olds were registered than in 2022.

The last three rows set the stakes. About 49 million people aged 18 to 29 are eligible to vote in 2026, including about 8.5 million who have turned 18 or otherwise aged into the electorate since the 2024 election. First-time eligible voters have a lower turnout history, with only 18% of 18- and 19-year-olds voting in 2022, so registration growth is a promising sign but not a guarantee of turnout.

Newly Eligible Voters 2026 | How Many Young People Can Vote and Who They Are

YOUTH ELIGIBLE TO VOTE IN 2026 BY GROUP (millions)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
All eligible youth, 18-29      ███████████████████████████████████████▍ 49
Latino youth                   ██████████▊                              10.8
Black youth                    ██████▌                                    6.6
Multiracial youth              ██▌                                        2.6
Asian youth                    ██▏                                       2.2
Newly eligible since 2024      ████████▌                                  8.5
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Source: CIRCLE at Tufts University, analysis of demographic data, 2026.

The 18-to-29 electorate is large and diverse. CIRCLE counts about 49 million young people eligible to vote in the 2026 midterms, and close to 8.5 million of them have aged into the electorate since the 2024 presidential election. Gen Z now makes up the whole 18-to-29 group, and it includes 41 million voting-age members who could already vote in 2024. About 47% of the 49 million are young people of color.

Newly eligible voters are slightly more diverse. Young people of color make up 48% of those aged 18 and 19, compared with 47% of the full youth group. The numbers include about 10.8 million Latino youth, 6.6 million Black youth, 2.6 million multiracial youth and 2.2 million Asian youth. CIRCLE says Black and Latino youth have historically voted at lower rates, so newly eligible voters need stronger outreach, especially in the first election after turning 18.

First-Time Voter Registration by State 2026 | Ages 18-19 in 22 States

CHANGE IN 18-19 REGISTRATION VS 2022, SELECTED STATES (each █ = 10 points)
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South Carolina   ██████████████████▍  +177%
Tennessee        ████████▌            +85%
Indiana          ██████▌              +65%
Alabama          ███▊                 +38%
Montana          ███▌                 +36%
Virginia         ███▌                 +35%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Source: CIRCLE at Tufts University, voter file analysis as of October 19, 2026. Percentage changes compare counts, not registration rates.

The biggest percentage gains came in states where young people usually vote at below-average rates. South Carolina led by a wide margin at +177%, followed by Tennessee at +85%, Indiana at +65% and Alabama at +38%. Montana (+36%) and Virginia (+35%) also recorded large increases. CIRCLE notes that these increases could signal an improvement in youth turnout in states that have lagged.

Percentages need careful reading. The 18-to-19 group is much smaller than the 18-to-29 group, so a modest change in the number of registrants can look dramatic, especially in small states or states that had very low registration in 2022. Only 3 of the 22 states, Kansas, Texas and New Jersey, registered fewer newly eligible voters than in 2022. CIRCLE reports changes in the number of registrants, not the share of young people who are registered.

First-Time Voters vs Ages 18-29 | Registration Growth Compared

YOUTH REGISTRATION CHANGE VS 2022, TWO AGE GROUPS (each █ = 1 point)
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Ages 18-19, late October        ████████  +8%
Ages 18-29, late October        ███       +3%
Ages 18-29, September           ██        +2%
Ages 18-19, September           ◄█        -1%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Source: CIRCLE at Tufts University, voter file analysis as of October 19, 2026, and September 2026 analysis.

The newly eligible group moved the most. Registration of 18- and 19-year-olds rose from -1% in September to +8% by late October, while the wider 18-to-29 group moved from +2% to +3%. That means first-time voters accounted for most of the late surge. 19 of 22 states with reliable data for 18- and 19-year-olds were above 2022 levels, compared with 29 of 42 states for the full 18-to-29 group.

State patterns differ by age group. For ages 18 to 29, South Dakota (+38%), Utah (+29%), New Mexico (+27%) and Minnesota (+26%) posted the largest increases. New Mexico usually has one of the lowest youth turnout rates, but registration has risen since it introduced automatic voter registration in July 2025. Louisiana, Florida, Massachusetts, West Virginia and Kentucky lagged furthest behind 2022. Michigan, Kansas, Iowa and Ohio, all top youth-significance races, were also behind.

Youth Voter Registration by Race and Gender 2026 | Who Registered

CHANGE IN YOUTH REGISTRATION VS 2022, AGES 18-29 (each █ = 2 points)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Asian American and Pacific Islander  █████████▌  +19%
Latino                                ████        +8%
White                                 █           +2%
Young men                             █           +2%
Young women                           ▌           +1%
Black                                 ◄████       -8%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Source: CIRCLE at Tufts University, voter file analysis as of October 19, 2026, covering 42 states.

The race breakdown is uneven. Registration among Asian American and Pacific Islander youth rose 19% and among Latino youth 8%, while white youth rose 2% and Black youth fell 8%. Asian American youth make up 5% of the voting-eligible youth population and Latino youth 22%. CIRCLE calls the decline in young Black registrants “notable and troubling,” since Black youth have historically faced more barriers to participation.

Gender differences are small but meaningful. The number of registered young men rose 2%, against 1% for young women. That does not mean more young men than young women are registered, because the figures compare registration to 2022. The change matters because young men have voted at lower rates than young women in recent cycles, so a gain among men could narrow that gap.

First-Time and Youth Voter Turnout 2026 | CIRCLE Early Estimates

YOUTH TURNOUT, EARLY ESTIMATES BY MIDTERM (each █ = 2 points)
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2010 (early)              ██████████  about 20%
2014 (early)              ██████████  about 20%
2018 (early)              ███████████████▌  31%
2022 (early)              █████████████▌   27%
2026 (early)              █████████████▌   27%
2026 battleground states  ███████████████  30%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Source: CIRCLE at Tufts University, early estimate based on The Voter Poll by SSRS, November 2026; NORC Civic Health and Elections Project; Newswise, November 2026.

CIRCLE’s early estimate is that 27% of young people voted in the 2026 midterms, matching its early estimate for 2022 and trailing only 2018, when the early estimate was 31%. The estimate has a margin of error of ±2 points, so turnout could be as low as 25% or as high as 29%. In battleground states, CIRCLE estimates youth turnout at 30%, with a margin of ±3 points. Exit poll data can overestimate turnout, and CIRCLE will publish a fuller estimate in the coming weeks.

Share and turnout are different measures. Young voters made up an estimated 11% of the 2026 electorate, against 12% in 2022, according to CIRCLE’s analysis of NORC data. That does not tell us whether turnout among eligible young voters rose or fell, because the share can fall in a high-turnout election for all ages. Early estimates also tend to run above final figures: CIRCLE’s early 27% for 2022 became 23% later, so the 2026 number may be revised.

How Young Voters Voted in 2026 | House Vote, Issues and Shifts From 2024

YOUNG VOTERS' HOUSE VOTE, AGES 18-29 (each █ = 3 points)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Democratic House candidates, 2026  ██████████████████████  66%
Republican House candidates, 2026  ██████████▍             31%
Democratic House candidates, 2024  ██████████████████▋     56%
Republican House candidates, 2024  ██████████████          42%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Source: CIRCLE analysis of NORC Civic Health and Elections Project data; The Voter Poll by SSRS via NPR; Harvard Youth Poll, October 2026; Axios, November 5, 2026.

Young voters moved sharply toward Democrats. CIRCLE estimates 66% backed Democratic House candidates and 31% Republican candidates, a 35-point advantage, compared with 14 points in the 2024 House exit poll. Support among young women rose from 61% to 70%, and among young white voters the split went from 50%-48% in 2024 to 63%-34% in the SSRS survey. CIRCLE found 79% of young Black voters and 71% of young Latino voters backed Democrats. NPR, citing the SSRS exit poll, put the Democratic margin at nearly 50 points, a difference of method.

The economy drove the vote. 43% of voters aged 18 to 29 named economic issues as their top concern, and more than eight in ten said Trump’s policies had worsened economic conditions. Early CIRCLE analysis indicates that 15% of young people who backed Trump in 2024 voted for a Democratic House candidate this year. An October Harvard Youth Poll found only 9% of young Americans said the country was on the right track. These findings describe all voters aged 18 to 29, not first-time voters alone.

First-Time Voter Data Notes 2026 | What the Numbers Do and Do Not Show

DATA COVERAGE FOR YOUTH REGISTRATION ANALYSIS (each █ = 2 states)
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States with reliable data, ages 18-29   █████████████████████  42
States with reliable data, ages 18-19   ███████████            22
States with fewer 18-19 registrants     █▌                      3
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Source: CIRCLE at Tufts University, One Week Away, October 27, 2026; CIRCLE early turnout estimate, November 2026.

The registration data are a comparison of counts at two points in time. CIRCLE compared the number of young people registered in late October 2026 with the same period in 2022. If 5,000 young people were registered then and 6,000 now, that is reported as a 20% increase. The measure does not show what share of young people are registered, and some states had not updated their voter files since September, so estimates reflect the latest available data.

Coverage is partial. CIRCLE has reliable age data for 42 states for ages 18 to 29 and only 22 for ages 18 and 19, so the 8% figure describes those 22 states, not the whole country. Small-state percentages can swing widely because the group is small. Turnout estimates carry margins of ±2 points nationally and ±3 points in battleground states. These limits matter when comparing states, since a state with a large percentage gain may still have low registration.

First-Time Voters Statistics 2026 FAQs

How many first-time voters registered for the 2026 midterms?

CIRCLE found 8% more 18- and 19-year-olds registered than at the same point before 2022, across 22 states with reliable data, as of October 19, 2026.

How many states saw more newly eligible voters register?

19 of the 22 states with reliable data. Kansas, Texas and New Jersey had fewer 18- and 19-year-olds registered than in 2022.

Which states had the biggest increase in first-time voter registration?

South Carolina (+177%), Tennessee (+85%), Indiana (+65%), Alabama (+38%), Montana (+36%) and Virginia (+35%).

How many young people could vote in the 2026 midterms?

About 49 million people aged 18 to 29 were eligible, including about 8.5 million who aged into the electorate since 2024.

What is the youth turnout in the 2026 midterms?

CIRCLE’s early estimate is 27%, with a margin of error of ±2 points. It is the second-highest midterm youth turnout in 30 years.

What was youth turnout in battleground states in 2026?

About 30%, with a margin of error of ±3 points, according to CIRCLE.

How did young people vote in the 2026 midterms?

CIRCLE estimates 66% backed Democratic House candidates and 31% Republican candidates, a 35-point margin.

Did first-time voters vote more than before?

Registration rose, but final turnout for 18- and 19-year-olds is not yet published. In 2022, 18% of 18- and 19-year-olds voted.

How much did overall youth registration increase?

Registration for ages 18 to 29 was 3% above the 2022 level across 42 states.

Which groups of young people registered the most?

Asian American and Pacific Islander youth (+19%) and Latino youth (+8%). Black youth registrations fell 8%.

What share of voters were young in 2026?

About 11%, according to CIRCLE’s analysis of NORC data, compared with 12% in 2022.

What was the top issue for young voters?

The economy, named by 43% of voters aged 18 to 29 in the SSRS exit poll, ahead of healthcare and jobs.

What was the record youth turnout in a midterm?

28% in 2018, according to CIRCLE’s final estimate. CIRCLE’s early estimate for 2018 was 31%.

Why are first-time voter numbers hard to compare?

Reliable age data exists in only 22 states for ages 18 and 19, percentage changes can swing widely in small states, and registration is not the same as turnout.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.