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Over the past two months, I’ve spent more time in Pennsylvania than in any other state. The reason is obvious. The outcome there will very likely determine whether the next president will be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.
One of the phenomena that has become increasingly clear to me, and which is supported by some polls, is that Gen Z voters between the ages of 18 and 27 are primarily older Millennials in their 30s. He is far more active in supporting Trump than he is.
Voters say increasing number of Gen Z men supporting Trump represents ‘ongoing culture shock’ in US politics
A recent Harvard University poll found Harris leading Trump 61% to 30% among millennials, while an NBC News poll found the lead was narrower among voters ages 18 to 29. is shown to be reduced to 16 points, 50-34.
That matches what I’ve seen on the ground.
At the Trump rally in Harrisburg in August, I met young, blue-collar Gen Zers who believed Trump would provide more opportunities, and at J.D. Vance’s rally in Hershey. The event was packed with about 20 people, and Saturday at Butler, I met dozens of people I was meeting for the first time. How long voters plan to pull the red lever.
David Marcus (left) speaks with young voters in Pennsylvania. They are said to be expressing support for Donald Trump’s presidential bid.
It came into sharp focus late Saturday night at Jack Jolly’s Holiday Bar in downtown Butler. This town is actually quite charming and appears to be thriving, unlike many of the hollowed-out Ohio cities I’ve seen that are more rust than belt. .
Jack Jolly’s is one of those cocktail lounges that infuses everything or smokes it in the glass, and the first people I met there were a trio of people in their late 30s. A couple and their male friend.
All are childhood friends of Butler’s who moved away after college and recently returned to purchase a home in this beautiful hillside hamlet. They weren’t fans of Trump and weren’t really interested in politics.
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One day, I asked them whether the newly affluent and the long-standing middle and lower classes were merging well. They looked at me suspiciously, and I said, “So your kids have to go to school together, right?”
“Oh, we don’t have children,” the single man told me, but the woman is a teacher.
And they’re the type of voters we’ve seen in other places, like San Francisco and Chicago, who have good jobs, little responsibility, and aren’t all that worried about the state of their lives, their country, and the world. do not have.
Around the time they departed, another trio took their place. This time it was three young men in their mid to late 20s. Two of them are Trump fans, and the other is a history teacher who supports Harris, but said, “I don’t think Trump is a threat to democracy.”
What followed was a lively conversation about politics, America, and life. They were well-informed, avid social media users, and importantly, they all seemed to know the other side’s best arguments.
Whatever is driving these young voters to the Republican Party will have profound effects not just in this election but for decades to come.
Earlier in the day, I spoke with Johnny and Rocky at a Trump rally, and they were also Gen Z or near Gen Z. Although the two are friends, Johnny was surprised when he said, “We watched the Rocky and Vice Presidential debates together.”
When I was 27, we did a lot of things, but getting together to watch the vice presidential debate wasn’t one of them. In the 1990s, we thought a bright future was inevitable. Unlike Gen X, Gen Z is well aware that this is not the case.
One of the reasons Gen Z men in particular, but not just Gen Z men, have been slow to understand redness is that they have never been able to explain it well, and still struggle to explain it.
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Are they less connected to, and more susceptible to, the neoliberal pabulum of leftist media and the entertainment industry? Is it partly because they grew up under President Trump and don’t find it abhorrent or abnormal? Is it counterculture?
Whatever is driving these young voters to the Republican Party will have profound effects not just in this election but for decades to come. Ten years from now, they will begin to accumulate the power that today’s Millennials have.
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And unlike millennials, who seem to be quietly resigned to a country and society that can’t get any better, there are flickers of hope among the youngest voters, as if dreaming. It seems so.
And we should all have such hope. Because maybe, just maybe, the kids will be okay.
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