For Alitzel Olvera, Facebook’s “memories” feature occasionally reminds her that politics was always on her mind as a teenager. From 2016 to 2020, she frequently posted on social media against former President Donald Trump and for Democrats—presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and then President Joe Biden.
But now, at age 23, Olvera not only doesn’t identify as a Democrat anymore, but she says she may not vote at all this year. That’s even though her parents—both immigrants from Mexico—have been battling for U.S. citizenship for years. “I just really don’t care for [partisan politics]. I voted for Biden, but he hasn’t really done much of anything, and I feel like things have gotten worse,” said Olvera, a senior at Kennesaw State University. “So, I don’t know what I am anymore.”
Olvera is far from the only one. There are signs everywhere that the voting-age members of Generation Z—those ages 27 and under—have soured on Biden and the Democrats. Many are saying they may vote for Trump or a third-party candidate instead, or that they’ll simply skip this year’s presidential election entirely—even in deep blue Fulton County, where Biden won 72% of the vote in 2020.
That matters because Gen Z voters, numbering 40.8 million, make up almost one-fifth of the electorate, and they skew Democratic. According to a Dec. 5 Harvard Institute of Politics poll of 18- to 29-year olds, 35% identified as Democrats, with just 26% as Republicans and another 38% as independent.
The 2020 presidential election drew record turnout across age groups, with 54.1% of youth under 30 voting. But the Harvard poll found that the number of youth under 30 who say they will “definitely” vote in the November presidential election has dropped eight percentage points since 2019—from 57% to 49%. This decline is most steep among young Black Americans (from 50% to 38%) and Latinos (from 56% to 40%). That’s significant, since people of color make up 45% of eligible Gen Z voters.
That includes Essence Spencer, a 21-year-old senior at Clark Atlanta University. When Georgia’s presidential primary was held on March 12, Spencer, who is African-American, skipped voting and walked the east side Beltline instead. She isn’t sure she’ll vote in November, but if so, she’s leaning towards Trump.
“When Trump was elected, I was in ninth grade. It changed the whole trajectory of everything. But I keep hearing better things towards Trump as far as what he did, especially with the economy and checks from the pandemic aid,” said Spencer. “Biden? Maybe he should take a step down, relax, and go on vacation.”
Eroding Biden support
The youth’s turn against Democrats is surprising when considering that in 2020, Millennials and Gen Z supported Biden over Trump by a wide margin, according to a Pew Research Center study. Among voters under 30 who voted in 2020 but not in the two previous elections, Biden won 59% of the vote, compared with just 33% for Trump.
For decades, the conventional wisdom among Democrats, popularized by books like 2002’s The Emerging Democratic Majority, is that they’re the party of the young and people of color. America’s changing demographics, with steady increases in the percentage of non-white voters, would mean a permanent Democratic coalition for future generations, party strategists theorized.
And indeed, young adults responding to the Harvard poll from Oct. 23 to Nov. 6 overwhelmingly indicated they would vote for Biden over Trump, if those were the only two candidates–with 41% voting for Biden and 30% for Trump. (Another 13% said they were undecided and 15% said they simply wouldn’t vote.)
But if presented with several independent candidates–Robert Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Joe Manchin–in addition to Biden and Trump, the percentage of undecided young voters jumped 18 points to 31%, edging out the 29% saying they’d vote for Biden. In that hypothetical matchup, Biden’s lead over Trump shrank to just four points.Overall, 29% of young people chose Biden, with 25% for Trump, 10% for RFK Jr., 3% for West, and 2% for Manchin.
According to a Wall Street Journal poll conducted in February, more than three-quarters of voters under 30 believe the country is moving in the wrong direction—more than for any other age group. Nearly one-third of young voters have an unfavorable view of both Biden and Trump, and 63% think neither the Democratic nor Republican Parties adequately represent them.
Shea, a 22-year-old recent Georgia Tech graduate, who asked to be referred to by just her first name, said Biden is trying too hard to appeal to centrists instead of young leftists. She voted for him in 2020 but is considering a third-party candidate in November. “He’s literally just appealing to the status quo, which hasn’t been working. Obviously, people’s lives have gotten worse under his administration, so I think a lot of people who are younger are seeing things through the media, which distracts people from real issues.”
Similarly, Olvera says she’s been at least somewhat swayed by some political TikTok videos that have exposed her to new information outside the mainstream media. “It sounds kind of dumb, but TikTok has given [young people] information we didn’t have before. We have a better view of how the political parties work–and how what they promise young people to get them to vote never happens,” she said. “I just feel like Biden doesn’t really stand for what I thought he did when I was younger.”
On Nov. 5, she may vote for RFK Jr. or just stay home.
Leave a comment