We will confidently say that Gen Z received 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 traits 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 fairly stable sense that younger voters have shifted arduous towards the Republican Get together.
Nonetheless, which may elide some nuance inside Gen Z.
The information we’ve from the final election suggests, broadly, not less than two sorts of younger voters: “Previous Gen Z” — extra Democratic, extra progressive — and “Younger Gen Z” — extra Trump-curious and extra skeptical of the established order.
That inner cut 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 look like two Gen Zs. And that divide inside the technology 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
A few 12 months in the past, the Harvard Youth Ballot, a public opinion challenge 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 beneath the age of 30 had 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 performed 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 Previous Gen Z — continues to indicate 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 Previous 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 Previous Gen Z. And whereas each teams are typically unaffiliated with both occasion, a barely bigger share of Younger Gen Z, 26 p.c to 23 p.c for Previous 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 Get together has remained primarily unchanged. The one main distinction within the spring ballot is a major shift away from Democrats towards the “unbiased” label. Previous Gen Z’s views of Republicans in Congress have gotten extra optimistic — 63 p.c of them disapprove this spring, in comparison with 76 p.c of them final 12 months. That stated, these older Gen Z voters’ views of Trump have solely dropped for the reason that fall.
Harvard’s ballot isn’t the one one selecting up this cut 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
When it comes to ideology, the polling is noisier, however exhibits indicators of a cut up as nicely.
Harvard’s pre-election polls did monitor increased “conservative” identification charges amongst under-25s than over-25s. Throughout all three 2024 and 2025 Harvard polls, conservative identification is actually unchanged throughout each teams. No matter how every subgroup self-identifies, nonetheless, different polling means that the youngest Zoomers should still maintain extra conservative views than the oldest Zoomers.
In line 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 faculty sports activities, and Ukraine, by increased margins, and usually tend to take into account casting a vote for a generic Republican candidate than older Gen Z.
Youthful Gen Z can also be the section of Individuals the place religiosity appears to be holding regular, if not outright rising. 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 pattern 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 Research. And specifically, amongst all Gen Z born between 2000 and 2006, the next share, 51 p.c, establish as Christian than they did in 2023, when 45 p.c stated 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 typically extra Republican, or extra conservative.
This cut up may upend future elections
Ought to these traits maintain, they are going to pose a problem for each main political events.
The concept of a rising Democratic voters — that youthful, various, and extra progressive generations of voters changing into eligible to vote may ship constant victories for Democratic and liberal candidates — appears more and more tenuous, not least after the 2024 elections. The polling since suggests the pro-GOP shift amongst youthful Gen Z-ers might not be a blip.
However Republicans could have work to do to maintain these positive factors and to have them work of their occasion’s favor throughout election season. That Younger Gen Z confirmed up for the GOP in 2024 doesn’t assure that they are going to accomplish that once more in subsequent 12 months’s midterms, or the following presidential election.
And rather a lot is at stake. Gen Z will turn out to be the most important a part of the voters in 2030, and could have the ability to sway elections, if Democrats and Republicans can hold them engaged.
For now, the information present there could also be one thing sturdy within the cut up that 2024 polling captured: The most recent cohort of younger voters, who couldn’t vote in earlier elections, was considerably extra Republican than the oldest younger voters. In 2020, Trump received about 31 p.c of their vote. In 2024, he received 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 had been a major chunk of latest voters. Was this shift distinctive to Trump and his marketing campaign? Maybe. However what information we do have suggests there is an underlying curiosity or openness towards Republicans among the many youngest cohort of Gen Z — one robust sufficient to cleave this technology in two.
