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 think a lot of young teens will just vote how their parents tell them unfortunately. And we’re breeding dumber and dumber kids by cutting education anyway possible in Southern states, so they’ll just pile on the maga wagon
As someone who cares about that, it can be another difficult part of being a parent. My older kid will be voting for the first time this year and knows how important it is. He knows all the things I think are important about voting. However it can be tough figuring out how to draw the line between sharing my opinion and things I think important, vs pressuring him to vote the same way
Or teens may just vote flippantly, without actually considering what’s at stake, so if Democrats were expecting that to lead to a surge of support, it may not even help them. I’ve known some kids of immigrants who said they wanted to vote for Trump because they thought he was funny, seemingly without actually knowing a single thing about Trump’s time in office (apart from the antics). Being the kids of immigrants, their parents would probably be negatively impacted by a Trump presidency, so they’re even potentially voting against their own interests.