Joe Biden trails rivals in support from young voters. His staff thinks they can change that.

DAVENPORT, Ia. — Achinteya Jayaram is doing everything he can to elect Joe Biden president — everything short of caucusing.

The 13-year-old from Bettendorf knocks on doors and makes phone calls to potential caucusgoers urging them to support the former vice president in February. But he's too young to participate in the process himself.

"I feel like that Mr. Biden has the most experience being the vice president for Mr. (Barack) Obama," he said.

But few young Iowans share his enthusiasm for Biden.

In September, a Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll found Biden's support at 9% among likely caucusgoers ages 35 and under. That's worse than rivals like U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has 27% support among the age group, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has 22%. Biden's support from that age group is tied with South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a 37-year-old who is running a campaign based on generational change.

When taking into account all those under 35 who are considering supporting Biden in some way, his support falls to sixth among the candidates.

Other polls have found similar results. A polling average published by The Economist shows Biden takes an average of 12% support from voters under 30, third behind Sanders and Warren. Sanders is 78, Biden is 76 and Warren is 70.

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While Iowa caucus crowds skew older in general, the audiences Biden attracts are noticeably more gray-haired. He often points out old friends in the crowd at events, including supporters of his 2008 and 1988 runs for president.

Biden campaign officials say they'd like to improve Biden's standing among younger voters.

"We want to increase our vote share there, with full acknowledgment that there are a lot of candidates that are attracting a lot of attention. And so no one’s going to win that vote," Greg Schultz, Biden's national campaign manager, told the Register earlier this month. "We would love to be gaining some points from where we are, and we think we can."

Campaign sees record on climate and guns as strengths

Campaign officials see climate change and gun control as areas where Biden has a long history of action on issues that are motivating for young people.

"When you look at the younger voters, one of the top issues — climate’s big, but almost even with more passion is guns," Schultz said.

Part of the campaign's strategy with younger voters will be to lean into Biden's leadership on those issues, like emphasizing his record of championing the passage of an assault weapons ban in the 1990s.

"He’s taken on the NRA and won," said Jesse Harris, a senior adviser with Biden's Iowa campaign.

On climate, Biden's campaign has emphasized his long record going back to when he introduced the Global Climate Protection Act in the Senate in 1986. He has introduced a climate plan that sets a goal of net-zero U.S. emissions by 2050 at the latest, but some activist groups say his climate plan does not go far enough to address the issue.

Kit Iyer, a senior at Linn Mar High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and an activist with the Sunrise Movement, asked Biden at a climate-focused town hall in Cedar Rapids in September how young climate activists like herself have affected his campaign.

"Well I hope I’ve affected young climate activists over the years. And they’ve affected my campaign because so many have joined it," Biden said. He continued with a winding answer that included the story of his own political awakening in the 1960s and ended by saying that Trump's election has mobilized young people to get involved in politics.

Iyer, who is undecided in the presidential race, said afterward that she appreciated Biden's answer to her question.

"Sunrise Movement is very encouraging," she said. "I’m glad that he is also that way and that he wants the youth to be active."

Working on organizing everywhere

Iowa campaign officials for Biden said the campaign is organizing on every college campus in the state — regent universities, community colleges and private schools — with a structure akin to a precinct operation with a student volunteer acting as a sort of organizer on and around campus.

But they're talking to young people in other places, as well.

"There’s a lot of young people in rural parts of this state, in the blue-collar parts of this state and so on and so forth that have nothing to do with colleges and we’re talking to all those people," said Jake Braun, Biden's Iowa state director.

Campaign officials like Harris also expect Biden to perform strongly with other groups, like veterans, Catholics, organized labor, African Americans, Hispanics and older Iowans.

The September Iowa Poll found 29% of Iowans 55 and older support Biden, a 12-point lead over Warren. He also leads among rural voters, with 29%, and with those who describe themselves as "moderate," with 31%, more than 20 percentage points ahead of Warren, who has 10% support from that group.

Biden also leads voters ages 45-64 in The Economist polling average with 28% and has a stronger advantage with voters 65 and over, taking 39%.

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On Iowa campuses, Biden's campaign is powered by people like Addie Cosgrove, a 19-year-old freshman at Drake University in Des Moines who joined the campaign as a fellow in June and recently started a "Bulldogs for Biden" student group.

She said she's known since the 2016 election that she wanted to work for Biden's campaign.

"I was waiting for Joe," she said. "I wanted to work for him."

She was inspired after reading his book, "Promise Me, Dad," about his son Beau's death from brain cancer in 2015. Cosgrove said her father died of cancer when she was 4.

Braun said the Biden campaign also benefits from their candidate's high name identification — and not just from his time as vice president. Braun said the years of parody articles about Biden published in The Onion, a satirical news site, and memes depicting Biden and Obama as a dynamic duo have also raised his profile with young people who otherwise wouldn't know him.

"So, oddly enough, who knew that we’d be able to thank The Onion," he said.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Joe Biden's campaign looks to improve standing among young voters