Four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump has been successfully selling white Christian nostalgia, racism and xenophobia to his base. However, the Public Religion Research Institute’s massive poll of 6,616 participants suggests that what works with his base might pose an insurmountable problem with Gen Z teens and Gen Z adults (who are younger than 25).
Demographically, this cohort of voters bears little resemblance to Trump’s older, whiter, more religious followers. “In addition to being the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in our nation’s history, Gen Z adults also identify as LGBTQ at much higher rates than older Americans,” the PRRI poll found. “Like millennials, Gen Zers are also less likely than older generations to affiliate with an established religion.”
Those characteristics suggest Gen Z will favor a progressive message that incorporates diversity and opposes government imposition of religious views. Indeed, “Gen Z adults (21%) are less likely than all generational groups except millennials (21%) to identify as Republican.” Though 36 percent of Gen Z adults identify as Democrats, their teenage counterparts are more likely to be independents (51 percent) than older generations.
I want this to be true with every being of my body. BUT….they’ve been saying this for years about each generation.
Same. I’m nearly 40, and I’ve been hearing this since before I could vote, and yet the GOP hasn’t been voted out of existence. If it were up to me they’d be purged from every position of power nationwide.
There were/are a lot of olds. They have dominated politics for a long time and have also not died due to being the first people to take advantage of modern medicine.
I never considered that, and it’s a damn tragedy. We gave the most short-sighted generation the longest lifespan in human history 🤦♂️
Yeah, unfortunately they’re also the leaded gas generation.
I mis led. Made pant tast good. I stop eeting pant win led got took a way.
Car slow down to. Never drank gas but huf it alot win I was a teenajer. Dint hurt me and I vote so thare.
I keep thinking Covid was a missed opportunity.
And instead what we got is the Democrat party moving to the right. Because as it turns out, procorporate trash would rather lose to fascists than compromise with leftists.
Republicans are doing a lot to hold on to power. There’s multiple states where they control the courts and legislature but can’t win a statewide office to save their life anymore. Which brings obvious questions about what the hell kind of elections they’re running. It’s also why they’re pushing for a SCOTUS ruling to make legislatures the only state governing body that matters.
Weren’t 2020 and 2022 record years for youth voter turnout?
Shhh. Democrats can’t keep ignoring issues important to young people if they admit young people vote.
They were record years for voter turnout in general. So youth turnout, though improved from previous years, was still less than turnout of older generations.
Can’t imagine why that would be. Boomers elected the whitest, oldest, boomerest candidate running in the 2020 primaries. Don’t these young people know a compromise when they see it?? /s
No, young voters were the strongest supporters of the oldest white guy in the 2020 Democratic primary. He came in second.
Young people are generally far less likely to vote, so which way they vote is somewhat irrelevant.
But Gen Z did have a higher turnout in 2022 than prior generations.
https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/gen-z-voted-higher-rate-2022-previous-generations-their-first-midterm-election
So it be smart to go listen to try and not only keep them at the table, to offer more chairs too.
That’s the avalanche starting right there.
Headline aside, 28% turnout for genz vs 23% for millenials, genx, and boomers in their respective first midterms is not going to swing an election where current boomers turn out 70% and genx turn out 60.
But they did swing the 2022 midterms.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/analyses/the-2022-midterm-elections-what-the-historical-data-suggest
In 2022 the Democratic party only lost 7 House seats and gained a Senate seat.
Leading into the election polli g and pundits predicted a decisive win for Republicans, and the unprecedented youth the out by Gen Z is credited as being a difference maker in the Democratic party outperforming expectations.
It would be foolish to write off Gen Z in 2024 by attributing to them the preceding generations’ (including mine, I’m Gen X) participation at matching ages.
I feel like the 2022 turnout is more down to the unique conditions and issues, across the age spectrum - especially Dobbs and election lies - than to anything specific to 20-year-olds. 28% turnout still means that the vast majority of GenZ can’t be bothered.
I mean, the handful of GenZ that have reached adulthood do seem marginally more active than other post-war cohorts, but they aren’t overthrowing historic voting trends. Pinning hopes for future political outcomes on them is as foolish as pinning the future of US democracy to black voters, or hispanic voters or any other minority/niche population, but media love doing just that. Just try googling “black women save democracy.”
Well fuck it, let’s ignore the last two elections they influenced and give up on them then.
Or, I dunno,
No way buddy if they’re not showing up for the whitest, oldest, boomerest strike blocking genocide supporting procorporate trash candidate there’s literally no pleasing them. These damn 40 year old kids don’t know a compromise when they see it! /s
I’m not saying to pin all hopes on the one generation. I’m saying don’t write them off as disengaged non-voters when they’ve already shown a higher participation rate than their predecessors at their current age.
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Could you be any more of a morale killer?