4 Major Trends in Young American Politics

The following are a few of the big themes we’re seeing with young Americans. (The Atlantic)

The kids are disillusioned: According to the long-running Monitoring the Future survey, in the early 1980s, 67% of high school seniors felt the U.S. system was the best in the world.

  • By 2022, this number dropped to 27%—now only 1 in 4 teens agree with this sentiment.

  • 40% of Gen Z see America’s Founders as “villains,” compared to just 10% of Boomers.

  • In 2002, 23% of high school seniors felt it was hard to stay hopeful amid “terrible things” happening in the world; by 2019, this figure increased to 40%.

There’s a growing partisan gender divide: While young women are breaking heavily for Kamala Harris, their male counterparts have been trending away from the Democratic Party, and Donald Trump leads with young men in multiple recent polls.

Chart: Survey Center on American Life

Gen Z’s more politically engaged: In the 2022 midterm elections, 28.4% of young Gen Z voters (18-24) cast their ballots—up from the 23% of Millennials and 23.5% of Gen X who turned out in their comparable first midterms.

The centrality of sexual identity: According to Gallup, nearly 1 in 4 Gen Z adults identifies as LGBT.

Bubba’s Two Cents

In some ways, the kids are pretty different from their older cohorts (they’re more anxious, queerer and more likely to catastrophize about politics). In other ways, they’re just reflecting broader themes in politics — like the gender gap that’s growing between men and women regardless of age.