Despite aggressive efforts to court young people since locking up her party’s nomination for president, Hillary Clinton continues to face intense skepticism among voters who enthusiastically supported President Obama though two presidential elections.

If the presidential race continues to tighten, the former secretary of state’s inability to inspire love from millennials could be the Achilles’ Heel that costs her the election in November.

“Younger voters are very smart individuals … When they look at Hillary Clinton, they see a lot of deceit.”

“She really doesn’t inspire [on] the policies that young people care about,” Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, an expert on youth voting patterns at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, told LifeZette.

A Gallup poll last week found that 60 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters younger than 40 wish someone other than Clinton were the nominee. That contrasts with those 40 and older, 67 percent of whom are satisfied with Clinton.

Overall, the results suggest that Clinton has not gained the potential supporters lost in contentious primary fight with Sen. Bernie Sanders. Among Democratic-leaning respondents last week, 56 percent said they were satisfied with Clinton as the nominee. That is the exact percentage of Democrats who told Gallup in mid-May that they preferred Clinton over Sanders.

“Clinton faces the continuing challenge of particularly low satisfaction among younger Democrats, who may still be pining for Sanders,” Gallup Poll Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport wrote on the company’s website.

The Gallup survey shows that older and minority voters are powering Clinton’s campaign. Among non-white Hispanic Democrats of all ages, only 47 percent are satisfied with her as the nominee.

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Clinton’s struggles with millennials are not new. According to a Tufts analysis of 27 states in which primary and caucus exit polling is available, Clinton won just 28 percent of voters younger than 30. That is half her level of support from all voters. Trump’s support among younger GOP primary voters, meanwhile, lagged his overall support by just 6 percent.

Clinton won 20 of the 27 contests analyzed and yet carried the youth vote in just two — Alabama and Mississippi.

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Kawashima-Ginsberg said young voters often feel they are merely “pieces in a game played by elites.” She said Sanders made them feel like they were at the center of a movement. Clinton does not.

“Because she’s a party insider … people don’t feel like this is their movement,” she said.

Ryan Fournier, chairman of Students for Trump, said Clinton’s mishandling of classified information and other scandals hurt her standing among millennials.

[lz_table title=”Hillary’s Youth Problems” source=”Gallup”]{{colspan=2}}{{align=center}}Democrats/Leaners
Pleased with Clinton as nominee,56%
Wish for someone else,42%
Don’t know/refused,2%
|{{colspan=3}}{{align=center}}Democrats by age
,18-39,40+
Pleased with Clinton,38%,67%
Wish for someone else,60%,32%
[/lz_table]

“Younger voters are very smart individuals,” he said. “When they look at Hillary Clinton, they see a lot of deceit.”

But capitalizing on Clinton’s weakness with millennials will be a challenge for Trump, who has struggled to assemble a significant grassroots operation in key battleground states.

Fournier, a sophomore at Campbell University in North Carolina, said his organization is just now starting to ramp up its outreach with the new school year.

“We expect his millennial numbers will be going up soon,” he said.

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For Clinton, soft support among millennials represents a very real danger. Voters younger than 30 were an important part of President Obama’s coalition; he won 60 percent of their votes in 2012. If he and Mitt Romney had split their votes evenly, the Republican nominee would have won. Clinton not only needs to win the youth vote — she needs to replicate their turnout levels in the past two presidential elections.

Even if millennials do not turn to Trump, Clinton will be endangered if large numbers of them stay home or vote for a third-party candidate.

Kawashima-Ginsberg said Clinton would win, even with less support from young voters, if current polling holds. But if Trump can narrow the gap, Democrats may not only risk losing the election. The Party might miss the opportunity to solidify a generation of loyal Democrats.

“It’s an interesting question if Hillary Clinton needs young voters as much as Obama did,” she said. “But there’s huge consequences of not relying on young voters as important.”