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When the midterm elections arrive on November 3, 2026, young Americans will face more than one important choice. Can they surpass the record 28 percent nationwide turnout among 18-29-year-olds in the 2018 midterms? Will young voters make decisions that are thoughtfully considered and informed by a wide range of perspectives other than their own?
From July 8-11, 2026, Close Up, the Stanford University Deliberative Democracy Lab, Generation Lab, and the Hoover Institution’s Center for Revitalizing American Institutions hosted NextGen Roundtable: Decision 2026, a large-scale experiment in democracy launched through our work on 2024’s America in One Room: The Youth Vote. We convened a nationally representative and scientific sample of first-time voters from across the country to listen to each other and deliberate key policy issues in a reasoned and mutually respectful way.
Stay tuned until September, when we’ll release our nationwide impact report on youth opinions, priorities, and behaviors, and the effects and promise of deliberative dialogue.