The gender dimensions of the Gen Z vote: What both parties can learn

Donald Trump’s victory was helped in no small part by the unexpected shift of support he received among Gen Z voters. 

While voters under the age of 30 still broke for Kamala Harris, her margin of victory was much smaller than the one enjoyed by President Joe Biden, who, according to a survey based on 2020 validated voter files, secured 59 percent of the youth vote compared with 35 percent of young voters who backed Trump. Depending on which exit poll you view, Trump improved his performance by between 8 points and 11 points among young voters compared with the 2020 race.

Trump’s performance with the nation’s youngest voters, however, was very uneven along gender lines. Analysis of the AP Vote Cast Survey by CIRCLE at Tufts University shows young women preferred Harris to Trump by an 18-point margin (58 percent to 40 percent), while young men broke for Trump by 15 points (56 percent to 42 percent). Trump’s gains among young male voters were particularly large, as a slight majority of men under 30 backed Joe Biden just four years ago.

Why did Trump do so much better among young men? 

Some point to Trump’s masculine, tough guy aesthetic as holding particular appeal to young men. This is particularly relevant as some studies suggest that young men are increasingly less feminist in their ideals and have become more likely to believe that they face discrimination in society than older men, probably in response to gains that young women have been making with respect to academic progress and growing participation in the workplace.

While Trump’s hypermasculine themes have long appealed to many socially conservative voters (both men and women), it is less clear whether those appeals worked for a majority of young men voters this fall, as I argue that Gen Z men’s turn toward misogyny may be overstated.  

Analysis from the American Institute for Boys and Men, for example, shows that Gen Z men broadly support gender equality (and at higher rates than older men), despite their reluctance to describe themselves as feminists.

But the Trump campaign’s decision to court young male voters by having Trump sit down for manosphere media personalities — from gamer Adin Ross, influencer Logan Paul and comedian Joe Rogan — was a smart move given that their platforms draw huge audiences of young men, who like other Zoomers, largely eschew legacy media.

While these manosphere personalities themselves often project tired, sexist tropes, more important than the substance of what Trump said on such shows may be the signal it sent to young men that at least one campaign was interested in reaching out and winning their support.

In contrast, the Harris campaign seemed far more interested in securing the votes of young women than in making appeals to young men. As a political strategy, it may have seemed justified. Compared with older women and their male counterparts, women under the age of 30 are staunchly liberal, more feminist and heavily engaged as leaders of progressive political movements.

Since Gen Zers have been eligible to vote starting in 2018, young women have turned out to vote in higher numbers than young men, engaged in politics at higher levels and broken hard for Democratic candidates. 

In the 2022 midterms, for instance, a whopping 72 percent of young women voters backed Democratic candidates for Congress compared with 54 percent of young men, perhaps in large part due to the Dobbs decision. My organization's research finds that seven in 10 Gen Z women support abortion legality. They are also far more likely than their male counterparts to prioritize abortion as a voting issue. In 2022, exit polls showed 44 percent of young voters cited abortion as their top priority, more than twice as many as those citing the economy. 

However, the exit polls show that this year’s presidential election was not a referendum on abortion for young people. Only 13 percent of young voters cited abortion as their most important concern. 

Despite the real ramifications faced by young women in states without access to abortion, voters' ability to ratify abortion protections into their state constitutions in many states — including red states — may have neutralized the impact of abortion as a voting concern. 

Instead, like older Americans, about four in 10 Gen Zers cited the economy and jobs as their top priority. Despite numerous macroeconomic indicators showing that the U.S. economy was performing well, the high costs of living and inflationary pressure dominated the concerns of most voters — particularly younger Americans. 

Our 2024 PRRI American Values Survey showed that roughly seven in 10 Gen Zers worry about getting a good paying job and being able to afford everyday expenses, healthcare and — perhaps most vitally — rent.

Harris’s message on how her economic policies would help young Americans clearly didn’t resonate with enough young voters. And while Trump’s plans to enact tariffs on goods imported to the United States would actually increase inflation, according to economists, his criticisms of the Biden-Harris administration’s economic policies resonated for many younger voters, as the cost of living was more manageable before the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The fundamentals of most U.S. elections demonstrate that when an incumbent party in the White House is unpopular, and most Americans are stretched financially, they often look for a change.

As analysts decode what worked and what didn’t this election cycle, the Democratic Party needs to do a better job of broadening its tent and reaching out to disaffected young men in future elections; they can’t simply rely on the votes of young women moving forward. Harris’s decline in support among young women is also a signal that a campaign run solely on social issues may not be enough for Democrats to win in future races. 

At the same time, if and when the Trump administration chooses to enact many of the extremely unpopular social policies envisioned by Project 2025, those decisions will likely further alienate younger voters.

Melissa Deckman, Ph.D. is CEO of the PRRI, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture and public policy.