Generation Z has a gambling problem — in politics |
Though there is a widening gender gap between young men and women, Generation Z represents a political horseshoe. Regardless of whether they identify with the Left or Right, members of Gen Z are open to an expansionist executive branch if it means expedient assistance. They don’t want to wait for laissez-faire policies to yield incrementally better economic mobility and security. They want it now. When young people vote today, they’re making a gamble for which candidate will deliver immediate relief.
It struck some as odd that President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hit it off during their meeting at the Oval Office last month. But to more pessimistic political observers, it made perfect sense. Like Mamdani, Trump is a populist who considers a paternalistic government a possible solution to political problems, though Mamdani supports much more drastic intervention bordering on statism. They both garnered a large share of the Gen Z vote in their respective elections.
Three out of four young voters backed Mamdani in the November 2025 mayoral race. Similarly, Gen Z supported former Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump in the 2024 presidential election by just four points, a massive drop from the 25-point margin former President Joe Biden earned in 2020. Both outcomes can be explained by young people’s rejection of the establishment. Indeed, the youth are still raging against the machine.
While the Democratic Party’s antiestablishment wing is having its day in the sun with Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Trump did it first. He tapped into the grievances of Americans who felt they had been left behind by globalization, including outsourcing U.S. labor and opening the border. And a surprising number of Gen Zers, burned out from the turbulent, scandal-ridden Biden era, gravitated to Trump’s burn-it-down message in 2024.
They resented the public health apparatus that locked them out of school and other social venues, deepening their mental health crisis. They struggled under crushing inflation triggered by Biden’s reckless fiscal spending. In 2024, they voted in droves for Trump, hoping he would spark an economic boom like the one from his first term.
But a year into his second term, those Gen Zers appear to regret the bet they made, according to a CBS News poll. Among Americans ages 18 to........