Gen Z has buyer’s remorse on Trump
Florida A&M University students of Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc. walk to the election polls on October 15, 2026, in Tallahassee, Florida. | Jeffery D. Adams/Florida A&M University via Getty Images If there is a Democratic wave in next week’s midterm elections, one of the biggest reasons for that will be young voters. While voters of all ages have soured on President Donald Trump and the Republican Party since his 2024 victory, polls show that the decline has been particularly pronounced among the young people who’d backed him in surprising numbers just two years ago. That election result prompted endless conversation about a “vibe shift” among Gen Z, and whether younger voters had turned against “woke” progressives, become radicalized by “manosphere” podcasts and TikTok algorithms, or lashed out against Biden-era gerontocracy. But the story looks very different heading into November. A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month found that, of people aged 19–34 who voted for Trump over Kamala Harris, only 49 percent approve of his job performance as president. (In contrast, among Trump 2024 voters aged 50 and above, about 75 percent still approve of him.) Pew also found earlier this year that partisan identification among young adults has shifted — or, rather,...
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