POLITICO Nightly: What’s driving Gen Z’s voting behavior?

 

By Catherine Kim Presented by  Guests listen to U.S. President Donald Trump during a Black History Month reception in the White House on Feb. 27, 2020 in Washington. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images TRUMP BUMP — There’s an untold storyline in the growing chatter around the youth gender gap: Young men of color are largely driving the phenomenon. The emerging gender gap within Gen Z — the demographic cohort born between 1997 and 2012 — is central to understanding the 2024 election. Despite the conventional wisdom that young people are more progressive than the generations before them, President Donald Trump grew increasingly popular with young men, while young women moved to the left. Even now, there is a drastic difference in how Gen Z men and women evaluate Trump’s performance as president. There’s a 21-point difference in Trump’s approval rate between Gen Z men and women, with 45 percent of young men approving of the president’s job performance, compared to just 24 percent of young women, according to a recent NBC poll . Meanwhile, the generation above them, those aged 30 to 44, only see a 9-point gap. As more information comes out about youth voting, though, it becomes clear that the gender divide isn’t single-handedly powered by Trump-loving young white men. Data from the Cooperative Election Study , which is the largest academic survey focused on American elections, showed that the percentage of young white men, ages 18-29, who voted for the Democratic presidential candidate dropped from 64.3 percent in 2020 to 57.9 percent in 2024. Meanwhile, the gender gap among young white men and women who voted for the Democratic candidate is just 3.2 percentage points. It’s a completely different story for young men of color, according to the CES. The percentage of young Black, Asian and Hispanic men who voted for the Democratic presidential candidate dropped 18.8 percentage points in the span of four years, from 76.1 percent in 2020 to 57.3 percent in 2024. There’s also been a drop in support for the Democratic candidate among their women peers — 85 percent to 77 percent — but there’s still a wide gap between the two groups’ Democratic support: 19.7 points, to be exact. Extrapolating racial data from youth surveys is a tricky exercise due to the difficulties in ensuring reliable sample sizes, which is why the exact percentage of their voting choices may vary drastically by poll. Even so, the larger gender gap among young voters of color is a trend that has emerged in other surveys . A key reason why this phenomenon is emerging is the changing priorities of young non-white men. Like their white peers, economic fairness and financial security are top of their minds, more so than cultural issues like diversity promotion, according to Daniel Cox, a pollster who specializes in the youth vote at the nonpartisan Survey Center on American Life. Pair that with a Democratic Party that has seemed uninterested in recruiting young men, and it becomes much clearer why Trump has had success in making inroads with the group. “So much of the Democratic Party's rhetoric and their emphasis has been on these cultural questions, and I think that that has largely come about because of the shifting demographic transformation of the party,” Cox said. “Nearly one in three Democrats is now a college-educated woman — the priorities that they have are quite different. And it's not that young men don't care about these issues at all, but they're just simply much lower priorities.” “Trump, in attacking the political and economic system as he has, would… be appealing to some number of these young [Hispanic] and young Black men who kind of feel shut out economically, not represented politically, and that culturally, they don't really fit with the modern Democratic Party,” he said. There’s one large caveat, though: While there is a large gender gap in young non-white groups when it comes to partisanship — Democrats vs. Republicans — that’s not the case when it comes to political ideology — liberal vs. conservative, Cox notes. On the contrary, the gender gap is largest among young white men and women when it comes to political ideology, he adds, with 46 percent of white Gen Z women identifying as liberal, compared to just 28 percent of white Gen Z men. It’s an unconventional phenomenon: Historically, we’re used to seeing political ideology and voting behavior align. But that just isn’t the case when it comes to Gen Z, which could be good news for Democrats, who can still court Gen Z men — white and non-white — who may identify as a liberal but swarmed to Trump in 2024. “This is not a generation that looks overwhelmingly conservative,” said Cox. “They largely believe in climate change, think government should be more active in helping people out. They are more pro-choice than pro-life, support same sex marriage and marijuana legalization, even if it's at lower rates than their female peers.” “When you think about the 2026 midterm elections, I think there’s a good chance that the Democrats could well recover and do fairly well with men in that election, depending on what the dynamics are,” he added. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at ckim@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @ck_525 .   A message from AARP: Americans pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, and big drug companies are fighting to keep it that way. They’re pushing Congress to delay Medicare’s ability to negotiate prescription drug prices—that would cost taxpayers billions and force seniors to keep paying more. Congress: Stand with America’s seniors, not big drug companies. Protect Medicare negotiation. Learn more.   What'd I Miss? ***BRAIN DEAD MAGA GOP...UNTIL LIBRARY OF CONGRESS!***** — GOP leaders draw the line at Trump’s Library of Congress takeover: GOP congressional leaders have stood aside the past four months as President Donald Trump has attacked legislative branch prerogatives — shuttering agencies, canceling federal grants and imposing sweeping tariffs. Now he’s meddling in their actual back yard. A White House push to seize control of the Library of Congress over the past week has run temporarily aground due to quiet but firm resistance from Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the sensitive situation. ***MAGA, TRUMP & THE BRAIN DEAD HATE THE FIRST AMENDMENT! DIFFERENCES OF OPINION ARE WHAT MADE THIS NATION GREAT! **** — Judge orders release of Georgetown scholar Trump admin is seeking to deport: A federal judge has ordered the release of a Georgetown researcher the Trump administration put into immigration detention in March as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian academics. U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said today the government offered no evidence that Indian-born Badar Khan Suri posed a danger to the community. She also said his arrest likely violated his free speech rights as well as his rights to freedom of association with his Palestinian-American wife. excerpts:  “The First Amendment extends to noncitizens and doesn’t distinguish between citizens and non-citizens,” Giles said during a hearing in her Alexandria courtroom. The judge said her ruling releasing Khan Suri was “totally separate” from ongoing deportation proceedings he faces in immigration court. In March, masked ICE agents surrounded and detained Khan Suri in Arlington, Virginia, amid a broader crackdown on foreign academics viewed by the Trump administration as espousing anti-Israel or pro-Palestine views. He is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and was teaching a class on “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia.” Though Khan Suri’s attorney quickly sued to keep him in Virginia and to seek his release from custody, federal agents transferred him within hours to Louisiana and then Texas. Giles’ ruling is the third federal court decision in recent days to order the release of scholars targeted in the Trump administration’s unprecedented deportation effort. Federal judges in Vermont also ordered the release of Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk and Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi. All three had their student visas revoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who determined that their presence in the country was contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests. Khan Suri’s release comes amid rising alarm and skepticism from the courts about the Trump administration’s tactics. A newly unsealed search warrant in the case of Columbia University student Yunseo Chung — similarly targeted for deportation before a New York-based federal judge blocked her detention — revealed authorities’ effort to target the university itself for alleged “harboring” of immigrants whose visas Rubio had revoked. The judges overseeing Mahdawi’s and Ozturk’s cases said the two appeared targeted purely for First Amendment-protected views, with one warning of an environment akin to the Red Scare and McCarthyism. — Trump EPA moves to weaken drinking water limits on toxic ‘forever chemicals’: The Trump administration said today it intends to roll back first-ever limits set by the Biden administration on four toxic “forever chemicals” contaminating water supplies across the country . Even low levels of the chemicals known as PFAS are linked with cancer, immune system problems, developmental effects and other health ailments. EPA-mandated testing has found them in nearly half of Americans’ drinking water. excerpt:  EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency will leave in place and continue to defend limits for the two most notorious types of PFAS — PFOA and PFOS — which have been phased out of use. But EPA will ask a federal court to let the agency “rescind the regulations and reconsider” the decision to regulate four of their close cousins that were designed to replace them. Zeldin also said he will craft a regulation to give water utilities two more years to comply with the remaining limits and will provide technical support to water systems, especially those in small and rural communities, as well as opportunities to request exemptions from the regulation. “We are on a path to uphold the agency’s nationwide standards to protect Americans from PFOA and PFOS in their water. At the same time, we will work to provide common-sense flexibility in the form of additional time for compliance,” he said in a statement. Zeldin, who pushed for aggressive regulation of PFAS chemicals when he was a representative from Long Island, New York, has said addressing the country’s PFAS problem is one of his top priorities as administrator. He recently announced plans to boost research and address industrial releases of the chemicals. But the drinking water regulation presents a politically treacherous decision for the administration, with some of the country’s most powerful business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Chemistry Council, fiercely opposing it. Many of those groups’ members have used or produced the chemicals for decades in everything from stain-resistant carpeting to nonstick cookware to firefighting foam, and could face significant liability for cleanups and personal injury lawsuits. They are also continuing to profit from that production and use, including in politically important sectors such as semiconductors and defense technology. North Carolina is one of the 39 states that do not have their own enforceable limits for some PFAS. Three of the four PFAS whose limits EPA wants to pull back are structurally different from the two whose limits the Trump administration wants to leave in place. That raises the prospect that drinking water utilities that upgrade their systems to treat for PFOA and PFOS could select technologies that don’t effectively treat for other PFAS. If the Trump administration decides to issue regulations for those chemicals in the future, water utilities may need to reengineer their systems. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also facing another hot-button decision around PFAS: whether to continue defending a Biden-era regulation listing PFOA and PFOS as hazardous under the nation’s Superfund law. That rule is seen as key to forcing chemical companies and others responsible for the pollution to pay for cleanup — something Zeldin has said he supports. But it also stands to create massive financial liabilities for major companies and the Defense Department. — Boeing signs deal in Doha against backdrop of Air Force One delays, Qatar’s luxury jet gift : Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg joined President Donald Trump in Qatar Wednesday for a signing ceremony for 160 new planes — but not the one the president really wants. The much-discussed potential gift of a luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar did not come up during brief remarks celebrating the separate deal for Boeing to sell Qatar Airways 160 new jets. Under a proposal endorsed by Trump this week, Qatar’s royal family would gift him their own Boeing 747-8 jet to replace the current planes used as Air Force One. The plan has roiled not only some GOP lawmakers but even some vocal MAGA influencers, who have called out the move. The Qatari proposal came as Trump has separately been feuding with Boeing over delays in delivering him a new Air Force One.   A message from AARP:   AROUND THE WORLD Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a video conference meeting with members of the All-Russian public organisation "Business Russia" in Moscow on May 13, 2025. | Pool photo via Alexander Kazakov PUTIN’S A NO-SHOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin will not travel to Turkey to attend peace talks with Ukraine that he himself suggested , the Kremlin announced Wednesday evening. The news is of little surprise, as Putin had never confirmed he would attend in person. Many observers, including EU High Representative Kaja Kallas, predicted he wouldn’t elect to meet directly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Putin offered the talks to Ukraine on May 11. Zelenskyy responded positively but cautiously, demanding a 30-day ceasefire as a starting point for negotiations. Russia and Ukraine have been at war since February 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor. AI ALLIES? — China is urging Britain to “collaborate closely” with it on artificial intelligence and is inviting ministers to Shanghai in July to talk about it further, the country's ambassador to the U.K. said today. Shanghai will host the World AI Conference this summer, including “high level meetings on global AI governance,” Beijing’s ambassador to the U.K., Zheng Zeguang, said in a speech at the Sino-UK Entrepreneur Forum in London. “We hope the U.K. government will send its senior representative.” The invite comes amid mixed signals from the British government about its China policy — with a flurry of more hawkish moves in recent weeks coming after months of work to try and build bridges between the two countries. British government reps took part in a China-hosted AI "capacity building" workshop in Beijing this week, Zheng said. And he pointed to the delegation China sent to Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s AI Safety Summit in 2023 as evidence of how the two countries are collaborating already on the emerging tech. BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE — Germany may return to conscription if too few people volunteer for the military, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned today. Speaking in his first parliamentary address since the new government took office, Pistorius said a new voluntary military recruitment program will begin this year to rebuild Germany’s under-strength army. “We have agreed that we will initially rely on voluntarism — a service that is initially voluntary and intended to encourage young people to serve their country,” Pistorius said. “And I say this quite deliberately and honestly: the emphasis is also on ‘initially,’ in case we cannot recruit enough volunteers.” Germany suspended compulsory military service in 2011. Reinstating it would mark a major policy reversal, driven by the rising threat posed by Russia coupled with growing worry about the reliability of U.S. security guarantees under President Donald Trump.   A message from AARP: When it comes to Medicare negotiation, Congress faces a clear choice: allow drug companies to keep ripping off Americans, or act now to stand with seniors. Protect Medicare negotiation so America’s seniors can pay fair prices for their prescriptions. Congress: Stand strong with America’s seniors. Protect Medicare’s power to negotiate and deliver fair prices for lifesaving prescriptions. Learn more.   Nightly Number Over 1,000 The number of Starbucks baristas across 75 locations who have now gone on strike to protest uniform policy changes . Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents workers at 570 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned U.S. stores, said the dress code should be subject to collective bargaining. RADAR SWEEP THE CRINGE WARS — According to Gen Z, millennials — the generational cohort that came before them — are uncool. They wear short socks and pause when taking videos. Some wear skinny jeans, while today’s young people are rocking oversized looks. This contrast is nothing new — generation bashing has been around for ages. But experts say it got worse during the pandemic, and one big divide lies within the generations’ differing approaches to social media. While millennials post polished portraits of avocado toast, so-called Zillenials make messy photo dumps. Chloë Hamilton explores the dynamic for The Guardian . Parting Image On this date in 1955: Soviet leaders sit at a conference table in the Parliament building in Warsaw, Poland, to sign into effect a treaty that established the Warsaw Pact, a collective defense agreement for a group of Eastern Bloc socialist republics in response to West Germany joining NATO. | AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on X Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

POLITICO 1000 Wilson Blvd Arlington, VA, 22209, USA