Will young, alienated voters show up for the U.S. election on Nov. 8?

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Not for a generation have young voters been so courted, so important – and so alienated.

The Democratic presidential nominee consistently lost them by troubling margins in the primary season. The Republican presidential nominee has little affinity with them. They find the Libertarian candidate intriguing, but many of them are drawn to him because he isn't Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. And the Green Party candidate has an underdog's appeal but isn't even regarded as a spoiler.

What's an American presidential candidate to do about the 69 million millennials, now the largest generational bloc in the country?

Mr. Trump's answer is to say that he's trying to create a world of opportunity for them. Ms. Clinton's answer is to woo them with direct appeals, surrogates, op-eds and heavy doses of Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the darling of left-leaning young people, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the easy winner among young people in most caucuses and primaries last winter.

"All they have to do is look at the hard issues," Mr. Sanders said in an interview. "If they believe that climate change is a hoax not to be dealt with then they should vote for Donald Trump. If they believe you should give hundreds of billions to the top 1 per cent of the country, they should vote for Donald Trump. But most young people don't feel that way."

Meanwhile, former governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico, the Libertarian candidate, is hitting them where it may count the most, emphasizing civil rights and personal freedom.

As a result, Mr. Johnson ranks second in a four-way contest, behind Ms. Clinton and ahead of Mr. Trump, among voters 18 to 34 surveyed by a Quinnipiac University poll. His lead over Mr. Trump among these voters in Colorado was 11 percentage points this summer. By a three-to-one margin, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics poll, these voters said they believe the country is going in the wrong direction.

That's what attracted them to the primary campaign of Mr. Sanders – and what he hopes will corral them into the Democratic corner on Election Day.

And yet their investment in the political system has been small, voting at a 50-per-cent rate in Barack Obama's first campaign, in 2008, but falling back to 46 per cent in the 2012 contest, according to the Pew Research Center. Baby boomers (now aged 52 to 70) voted at a 69-per-cent rate in both 2008 and 2012.

"There is a larger share of the youth vote that is not interested in the race, largely because they don't see either candidate as an inspirational candidate," said Anthony Corrado, a political scientist at Colby College in Waterville, Me.

"They were energized by Bernie Sanders and they're less interested in Clinton, and those who side now with Clinton are more opposed to Trump than in favour of Clinton. The new emphasis on gender based on the Trump tapes may change that in her favour."

The destiny of the youth vote is of special urgency to the Clinton campaign, which worries that if Mr. Johnson siphons off too many voters from this group her election prospects could be endangered.

"I need you," Ms. Clinton told students at Temple University this fall.

Of particular concern to both major-party candidates: The 10 per cent of this group who say they will not vote, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll.

"They don't like any of the candidates and so the question is whether they will show up," said Andrew E. Smith, a political scientist who directs the Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire. Neither of the major-party candidates, he said, "knows how to speak to them."

Indeed, Prof. Corrado asks his Colby classes what most troubles them about the campaign, and invariably the absence of discussion of climate change comes up, along with student debt and issues of diversity.

Ms. Clinton's failure to create enthusiasm among these voters in the caucuses and primaries as she competed against Mr. Sanders, her then 74-year-old opponent, is a source of enormous concern to Democratic strategists. In the Iowa caucuses, she lost the youth vote by a margin of six-to-one. Eight days later, she lost the New Hampshire primary by 22 percentage points.

Mr. Sanders prevailed among millennial voters almost everywhere he competed, including in Ms. Clinton's home state of New York, where she was defeated among these voters by a margin of almost two-to-one. It was even worse in Pennsylvania, one of the most prized swing states in the general election; there, Mr. Sanders swept 83 per cent of the vote of those 18 to 29 years old.

"Message needs to be more positive, upbeat, hopeful," a Clinton adviser wrote to John Podesta, the campaign chairman, according to an e-mail released by Wikileaks. "Bernie is saying we can change the world. Her [message] is 'No, we can't' because …'" He advised: "Hillary's ads need to be young people – all under 45 and a smattering of older ones – validating her."

Now Mr. Sanders is on the campaign trail, urging the young voters who flocked to his cause to align themselves with him in support of Ms. Clinton.

Eight years ago, Mr. Obama won the youth vote with about 60 per cent. Voters under 30 years of age are about one-fifth of the electorate, and right now Ms. Clinton has the support of fewer than half of them.

As a result, Michelle Obama visited campuses in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on one day last month. The actors Josh Gad (of Broadway, film and television fame) and Lea DeLaria (from Orange is the New Black) campaigned for Ms. Clinton for two days in the state, including at Penn State University. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund set aside $30-million (U.S.) to assist Democrats, targeting millennials.

"To young people I would say that politics is not a soap opera or a baseball game," Mr. Sanders said. "It is not about Hillary Clinton or about Donald Trump. It is about the future of our country."