We are able to confidently say that Gen Z obtained much more Republican over the past couple of years, due to a swarm of latest, first-time younger voters — particularly males of all races.
Pre-election polling captured this phenomenon, voter registration tendencies tracked it, and post-election exit polls counsel ballots mirrored it. Add to this a latest report from the Democratic agency Catalist, which has produced a number of the most definitive analyses of the 2024 election, and also you begin to get a reasonably strong sense that younger voters have shifted arduous towards the Republican Social gathering.
Nonetheless, which may elide some nuance inside Gen Z.
The information now we have from the final election suggests, broadly, a minimum of two varieties of younger voters: “Outdated Gen Z” — extra Democratic, extra progressive — and “Younger Gen Z” — extra Trump-curious and extra skeptical of the establishment.
That inner break up, roughly between these aged 18 and 24 within the latter camp and 25 to 29 within the former, hasn’t dissipated post-election; it’s nonetheless displaying up in polling and surveys. No cohort is monolithic, however a mixture of things — the pandemic, the rise of smartphones and newer social media, inflation, Trump — appears to be driving a wedge inside Gen Z.
The upshot is that there seem like two Gen Zs. And that divide throughout the era actually complicates the long-held perception that youthful voters are usually extra progressive than older ones — and that Democrats thus have a pure edge with youthful generations.
Politically, there are two Gen Zs
About a yr in the past, the Harvard Youth Ballot, a public opinion undertaking from that college’s Institute of Politics that has been recording younger voters’ sentiments for greater than a decade, tracked a significant distinction in the best way voters underneath the age of 30 have been feeling about Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Whereas Biden held a lead of 14 share factors amongst adults aged 25 to 29, his lead amongst 18- to 24-year-olds was 10 factors smaller. Assist for Trump was increased among the many youthful a part of this cohort by 5 share factors within the March 2024 ballot.
That dynamic remained true even after the Democrats switched to Kamala Harris as their standard-bearer. In the identical ballot carried out in September, the youthful half of Gen Z voters continued to lag in its Democratic help in comparison with the older half.
Now, greater than 4 months into the Trump presidency, this dynamic — of Younger Gen Z being extra pleasant to Republicans than Outdated Gen Z — continues to point out up within the newest Harvard IOP ballot.
For instance, the March 2025 survey discovered that Younger Gen Z holds extra favorable views of Republicans in Congress than Outdated Gen Z; whereas the older cohort disapproves of the GOP by a 35-point margin, the margin for the youthful cohort is 28 factors. Equally, the older cohort disapproves of Trump’s job efficiency extra sharply than the youthful cohort — a 7-point hole on the margins.
The identical survey discovered Trump’s favorability is 5 factors higher with Younger Gen Z than with Outdated Gen Z. And whereas each teams are usually unaffiliated with both social gathering, a barely bigger share of Younger Gen Z, 26 p.c to 23 p.c for Outdated Gen Z, identifies with the GOP.
Older Gen Z hasn’t seen any slippage in its wariness of Republicans. Throughout all three of these Harvard polls, the share who establish with the Republican Social gathering has remained basically unchanged. The one main distinction within the spring ballot is a major shift away from Democrats towards the “unbiased” label. Outdated Gen Z’s views of Republicans in Congress have gotten extra constructive — 63 p.c of them disapprove this spring, in comparison with 76 p.c of them final yr. That mentioned, these older Gen Z voters’ views of Trump have solely dropped because the fall.
Harvard’s ballot isn’t the one one selecting up this break up in preferences. Yale College’s youth ballot from April has tracked comparable divisions in political identification and preferences, whereas different non-political polling from the Pew Analysis Heart has tracked inner variations inside Gen Z as nicely.
The ideology of the Gen Zs
By way of ideology, the polling is noisier, however exhibits indicators of a break up as nicely.
Harvard’s pre-election polls did observe increased “conservative” identification charges amongst under-25s than over-25s. Throughout all three 2024 and 2025 Harvard polls, conservative identification is basically unchanged throughout each teams. No matter how every subgroup self-identifies, nonetheless, different polling means that the youngest Zoomers should maintain extra conservative views than the oldest Zoomers.
In accordance with the spring Yale Youth Ballot, youthful Gen Z women and men are inclined to have extra Republican-coded opinions than their older Gen Z friends on a spread of coverage points. They have a tendency to view Trump extra favorably, aspect with the Republican place on some insurance policies, like immigration, trans girls in school sports activities, and Ukraine, by increased margins, and usually tend to contemplate casting a vote for a generic Republican candidate than older Gen Z.
Youthful Gen Z can be the phase of Individuals the place religiosity appears to be holding regular, if not outright growing. As I’ve reported earlier than, younger Gen Z males are holding on or returning to organized faith in charges excessive sufficient to decelerate a decades-long development towards spiritual dissociation in America.
They’re outpacing older Gen Z and youthful millennial males in figuring out with a faith, per the Pew Analysis Heart’s newest Spiritual Panorama Examine. And particularly, amongst all Gen Z born between 2000 and 2006, a better share, 51 p.c, establish as Christian than they did in 2023, when 45 p.c mentioned so.
Elevated religiosity isn’t essentially direct proof of extra conservative thought or Republican affiliation, however there’s a correlation between Republican partisan identification and respondents saying that the function of faith is necessary to them or that they establish with a faith in any respect. In different phrases, extra spiritual Individuals are usually extra Republican, or extra conservative.
This break up might upend future elections
Ought to these tendencies maintain, they’ll pose a problem for each main political events.
The thought of a rising Democratic voters — that youthful, various, and extra progressive generations of voters turning into eligible to vote might ship constant victories for Democratic and liberal candidates — seems to be more and more tenuous, not least after the 2024 elections. The polling since suggests the pro-GOP shift amongst youthful Gen Z-ers will not be a blip.
However Republicans could have work to do to maintain these positive factors and to have them work of their social gathering’s favor throughout election season. That Younger Gen Z confirmed up for the GOP in 2024 doesn’t assure that they’ll accomplish that once more in subsequent yr’s midterms, or the subsequent presidential election.
And loads is at stake. Gen Z will develop into the most important a part of the voters in 2030, and could have the facility to sway elections, if Democrats and Republicans can hold them engaged.
For now, the info present there could also be one thing sturdy within the break up that 2024 polling captured: The latest cohort of younger voters, who couldn’t vote in earlier elections, was considerably extra Republican than the oldest younger voters. In 2020, Trump obtained about 31 p.c of their vote. In 2024, he obtained 43 p.c of their help.
And the 2024 Catalist report means that the shift was pushed by the emergence of a beforehand disengaged, male, and racially various youth voters, made up predominantly of newly eligible Younger Gen Z voters. Younger Black and Latino males on this cohort shifted their votes to Trump, and have been a major chunk of latest voters. Was this shift distinctive to Trump and his marketing campaign? Maybe. However what knowledge we do have suggests there is an underlying curiosity or openness towards Republicans among the many youngest cohort of Gen Z — one sturdy sufficient to cleave this era in two.
