The Young Independents: Meet the Millennial Voters Who Could Swing the Election

The voters are mostly undecided and independent.

ByABC News
November 5, 2016, 5:02 AM

— -- With the country heading for what looks to be a close contest for the White House on Election Day, one contingent of voters with the potential to sway the outcome of the election is millennial voters.

Many young voters lack enthusiasm for either of the major party nominees, with polls showing them less likely to vote than some other groups and also more likely to back a third party candidates.

For the last month, ABC News has been checking in with a group of mostly independent and undecided student voters at George Mason University in Virginia as they’ve made up their minds.

In a final meeting with the students on Friday, with just four days to go until Election Day, four of seven students gathered had decided to vote for Hillary Clinton. One has decided to vote for Trump. And two others have yet to make their final decisions and are strongly considering third party options.

Of the four who have decided to back Clinton, all were women. But these students say gender is not the reason Clinton’s won their vote.

"When I look at Hillary Clinton, I don’t look at her as a woman," said Hadeel Abou-Ghaida. "I look at what’s she represents and stands for and it just happens that she’s a woman."

"She is the better candidate, I don’t think she’s the best candidate," Abou-Ghaida, a former Bernie Sanders supporter, went on to say.

Mariam Mossavi, who is Muslim-American, has decided to cast her vote for Clinton, even though she’s been less than enamored with the Democratic nominee.

"I just think the polls are way too close for us to be voting third party in Virginia," said Mossavi, who remained undecided until recently because she says her “questions aren’t answered” by the candidates.

Ian Habit just recently reached his final decision to vote for Donald Trump after previously considering if he was better off not voting at all, comparing it to the “Trolley Problem” in moral philosophy.

“Do you switch the track and save five people or do you do nothing and so voting for either candidate can either be morally wrong or morally right but doing nothing is amoral and thus I wouldn’t have such a bad conscience about what happens,” Habit said. “But then it means I can’t complain about it later.”

But by Friday, Habit had resolved to vote for Trump, saying Clinton "represents the same tired baggage" and citing the Supreme Court as another major factor in his decision-making process.

"I don’t like people telling me what to do, which is a large part what the Clinton campaign has done that’s annoyed me, so I’m voting anti-establishment and voting for Donald Trump," he said.

Scott Loudin, a former Bernie Sanders supporter, had all but made up his mind to cast a protest vote for Jill Stein a month ago. But with the polls tightening in Virginia, he's now reconsidering his planned-for third party vote.

"I am not in love with Jill Stein, I have serious problems with her, I also have serious problems with Hillary Clinton," Loudin said."So I feel like whichever way I vote … I’ll feel like I’ve settled either way."

Chris Parker joined the group a month ago saying he “hop[ed] Trump [could] at least give me an option” to vote for him by drilling down more on policy proposals but has since concluded that he can’t give Trump his vote.

“I don’t want a president who’s going to have a knee jerk reaction every time someone says something that he doesn’t like, and it’s just gotten to the point where that’s all he’s doing, there’s no policy talk,” Parker said in October.

Parker doesn’t yet know for certain whom he will end up voting for come Election Day but is leaning toward Libertarian Gary Johnson. He does know, however, what he doesn’t want: "We’re tired of the status quo."