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Snapchat has helped 1 million users register to vote, a possible boon to Democrats

Of the newly registered, more than half are first-time voters, and more than 80 percent are younger than 30.
Image: Young voters
Students wait to cast ballots at a polling station on the campus of the University of California, Irvine, on Nov. 6, 2018.Robyn Beck / AFP - Getty Images file
By Dylan Byers

When Americans cast their ballots in this year's presidential election, millions will do so because they registered to vote through such social platforms as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

One of the most notable digital contributors will have been Snapchat, not least because the vast majority of its users are in their teens and 20s.

Snapchat has helped more than 1 million users register to vote, representatives for the company said. More than half are first-time voters, and more than 80 percent are younger than 30.

While that is significantly fewer than the 2.5 million who have signed up through Facebook, the recruitment of Generation Z and millennial voters could play a larger role in affecting the outcome in certain districts.

"There just simply isn't another tech or media platform that's been as mindful about reaching young voters with credible information and the tools to get involved in this election as Snapchat," said Peter Hamby, the host of Snapchat's "Good Luck America."

Snapchat's voter registration efforts will almost certainly be a boon for Democrats, as young voters overwhelmingly oppose President Donald Trump and favor the Democratic Party.

Gen Z voters, who are 18 to 23 years old, and millennial voters, 24 to 39 years old, both favor Joe Biden over Trump by almost 2-to-1, according to NBC News/Wall Street Journal surveys from the first eight months of the year.

And the majority of Snapchat users who register through the platform do go to the polls. The company said that in the 2018 midterm elections, 57 percent of the 450,000-plus voters it helped register cast ballots.

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Snapchat users are also signing up big in historically red or battleground states. The company says it saw more signups to register in Texas than in any other state, with some of the largest additions coming from Texas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.

"Snap has a huge reach in the Sunbelt in particular ... where much of this election is playing out," Hamby said.

While Texas is likely to go for Trump, the four other states the company mentioned are very much in play, according to the NBC News Battleground Map.

Dylan Byers

Dylan Byers is a senior media reporter for NBC News based in Los Angeles.