Republicans' youth voter problem

Two years after young voters swung to the right in 2024, helping return Republicans to unified control of Washington, economic concerns are pushing 18- to 34-year-olds back to the left for the midterms, according to a new national survey of more than 1,000 young Americans.

The poll from nonpartisan outfit Generation Lab, shared exclusively with POLITICO, amounts to a flashing warning sign for Republicans. It shows young Americans planning to vote Democratic in November by a margin of 52 percent to 19 percent. Broken down by party, the data indicates that the GOP has a significant base problem: Just 58 percent of young Republicans say they’ll vote GOP — with nearly a third selecting “neither” or “won’t vote.” By contrast, 85 percent of young Democrats intend to show up for their party at the ballot box.

Just as in 2024, deep discontent with the state of the economy is driving anger at the party in power. Now, 81 percent of young Americans rate U.S. economic conditions as bad or terrible — including 68 percent of Republicans. The younger the age bracket, the more optimism diminishes.

President Donald Trump shoulders most of the blame among respondents, with 41 percent who rate the economy negatively naming him as the top culprit, plus 9 percent who select congressional Republicans. But it’s not just the GOP: Another 31 percent finger corporate greed/large companies. Just 6 percent blame Joe Biden or congressional Democrats.

In many ways, the polling looks like an inverse of Democrats’ struggles in the 2024 cycle, when surveys showed that voters didn’t personally experience the positive economic image projected by the Biden administration.

“We tie this really closely to what people can see and feel and touch in terms of their own personal economic situation,” Cyrus Beschloss, Generation Lab’s founder and CEO, told POLITICO. “Saying that affordability is a ‘line of bullshit’ is definitely not helping — to the extent that young people are clued into that.”

But a caveat remains. “Young people are voting at just obscenely low rates,” Beschloss said. Insofar as this demographic might swing to or from Republicans, “their power’s a lot more concentrated in social force” — as cultural barometers and pace-setters — “than it is electoral force.”

Young people’s social force on GOP politics looks highly negative right now, and not just over concerns about inflation, housing, jobs and gas prices. The survey also finds mass blowback to the U.S.-Israel war with Iran: Seventy-seven percent of young Americans say the U.S. made the wrong decision in striking Iran, and 75 percent say they disapprove or strongly disapprove of Trump’s handling of the military action.

Republicans are keenly aware of voters’ cost-of-living and economic concerns — but they argue that they’re positioned to sway Americans here with a message focused on lower government spending, new tax breaks and blaming Democrats.

The GOP is also addressing bad economic feelings head on by telling voters that they’re cleaning up messes created by Democrats. And following on Trump’s 2024 strategy, Republicans have doubled down on TikTok and other social-media content/branding that reaches young people where they are. Candidates speaking to voters directly works well, the party has found, as does pro-America content that can go viral organically — think Artemis II or the semiquincentennial.

“After years of skyrocketing costs and economic uncertainty under Joe Biden and Democrats, combined with the left’s alienating, out-of-touch rhetoric, young Americans are fed up with empty promises,” said RNC national press secretary Kiersten Pels. “They want real results, and Republicans are speaking directly to them in a way that resonates.”

The strong GOP push could yet pay dividends. “I really … would not discount how much the Republican world has been focused on running a really tight operation in terms of not only getting more young men into their camp but keeping them there,” Beschloss said.

But Democrats have built out their own infrastructure to compete, including creator networks for candidates to work with and new resources devoted to communicating via YouTube, podcasts, social media, influencers and Substacks.

And the economic concerns are a lay-up for Democrats’ midterms messaging writ large, they say, which puts affordability front and center — the kind of laser-focused approach that scored the party big wins in 2025. “Young voters’ top concern is affordability, and we’ve been beating the drum on that issue all cycle,” said DCCC spokesperson Aidan Johnson. “Many don’t think they will ever be able to buy a home, or are graduating out of high school and college with not nearly the same kind of opportunities that their parents had.”

Looking beyond the midterms: The Generation Lab also asked young Americans about the 2028 presidential race — and at this early stage, name recognition seems to be paramount.

Democrats like Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) best, at 31 and 23 percent respectively. Republicans pick Vice President JD Vance (25 percent) and then HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (13 percent). And tied for seventh overall, at 4 percent each among all young Americans: Jon Stewart, Mark Cuban and Tucker Carlson.

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