U.S. millennials' voting enthusiasm dips due to negative campaign: poll

U.S. millennials now back Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over her Republican rival Donald Trump by more than 3-1, but their voting enthusiasm is dipping due to steady spray of venom as a sharply negative campaign enters its final weeks, a new poll has found.

The impact of continuous venomous attacks in this cycle is apparent among the country's largest and rising generation, the latest USA Today/Rock the Vote poll issued on Tuesday suggests.

The former secretary of state now has 68 percent support among likely millennial voters as Trump's support hits historic low with only 20 percent, according to the poll, noting even a third of Republican millennials don't back the New York billionaire, making him the least supported among young voters than that of any major-party presidential candidate in modern times.

If Clinton has a problem generating enthusiasm among millennials, Trump faces outright rejection, a polling analysis report from the USA Today newspaper commented.

Support for third-party candidate also ebbs among U.S. millennials. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson is backed by eight percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein by just one percent, the poll shows.

However, the main reason for these Americans under 35 who back Clinton is "to keep Donald Trump out of the White House," while the top reason Trump's young backers cite for their choice is to keep Clinton from winning, the poll finds.

Enthusiasm about the voting peaked in the poll in March, when Sanders drew wide millennial support in his bid for the Democratic nomination. It dropped in August and dipped a bit more this month.

In January, 55 percent of millennials agreed that "there are better ways to make a difference than voting," Now 62 percent think so. As many as 46 percent of voters under 35 claim they now feel "My vote doesn't really matter," up from 37 percent at the beginning of this year.

Among those who are undecided or don't plan to vote, two-thirds say the reason isn't because voting doesn't matter or because they're not interested in politics. Instead, they say it is because "I don't like any of the candidates", according to the poll.

The campaign has been "really annoying", the USA Today report quoted a 29-year-old young interviewee named Natalie Harris as saying, "It's kind of like fighting with your brother or sister but dirtier."

The online survey of 1,020 adults aged between 18-24 years old was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs from Oct. 11 to 13. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. Endit