About 42 million people eligible to vote this election fall into Generation Z (Gen Z covers those born roughly between 1997 and 2012). The youngest voting block is also the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in the history of the United States, and they identify as LGBTQ at much higher rates than older Americans.
It also seems that Gen Z is more politically engaged than previous generations. According to the State Data Center, about 65% of Iowans aged 18 to 24 are registered. In 2020, 61% of them voted. When looking at the year 2000, only 55% of 18 to 24-year-olds were registered and only 43% of them actually voted.
This election, a majority of young Americans report they will “definitely” vote in November, according to the Fall 2024 Harvard Youth Poll. According to the Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of voters ages 18 to 24 associate with the Democratic Party, compared with 34% who align with the GOP.
There is also a significant gender divide in young voters.
“It's moved beyond a gender gap to being the gender Grand Canyon, I think. Especially for the younger voters,” said Karen Kedrowski, professor of political science and director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center at Iowa State University. “What we are seeing is that there is a real shift across age groups, but especially with the younger voters for women to be favoring the Democratic Party.”
In a recent Times-Siena poll of six swing states, men ages 18 to 29 favored former President Donald Trump by 13 points, while women the same age favored Vice President Kamala Harris by 38 points. That’s a 51-point gap, the widest seen since at least 1980.
River to River went on the road to speak with young voters about their policy concerns and hopes for the upcoming elections. Ben Kieffer co-hosted conversations at Drake University with Mack Swenson, the editor-in-chief of The Times Delphic, and at Iowa State University with Cleo Westin, editor-in-chief of the Iowa State Daily.
Here is what they had to say.
Gen Z on issues they care about
“My top issues are, are and always will be, abortion access at the state level and also in the federal level. It is critically important when you consider that the Gen Z generation has less constitutional abortion rights and access than our parents did, than our grandparents did, and that is something that I'm extremely passionate about and really looking forward to voting on this election cycle,” said Caroline Siebels-Lindquist, president of Students for Reproductive Justice at Drake University and commentary editor of the The Times Delphic.
“Immigration is a major issue, but then also the economy is a major issue, but immigration helps with making the economic issues a lot harder, because we have more people here with less jobs. So that makes it so it's harder for Americans to find opportunities to cover for higher cost of living issues and higher costs of housing. And we're having so many other issues that are being stacked on top of each other that, again, make all of the other issues much worse,” said Andrew Storey, treasurer of the Iowa State chapter of Turning Point USA.
“One of the biggest issues for Gen Z is the environment, climate change. We're the people who have to fix what was broken before us. And looking at the two candidates for the House of Representatives in our district, neither of them on their websites have environmental policies on there. And I mean myself and many of my colleagues have been kind of screaming from the rooftops, ‘Please, please, we need to do something about climate change. We need to do something about water quality.’ And still, our two candidates for the House of Representatives don't have a policy on that. So, in my opinion, I don't think that they fully listen to us,” said Anna Snyder, junior in environmental sustainability and business management and president of the Drake Environmental Action League.
“Instead of car crashes or other instances being the leading cause of death for people within our age group, it is firearms now, so I understand how it can be hard for other generations to know how deeply this impacts us, but we have been forced to face this for the majority of our lives. I mean, since I was seven years old in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I've been aware of this issue. It's been in my face that I've had to think about each year when I grow up and go to school, is it going to happen at elementary school? Is it going to happen in middle school? Is it going to happen at high school? And even for Perry, I went to school at Valley High School in West Des Moines, and every year we would take a trip to Perry High School for our band competition. So when I heard that news, it really just broke my heart, because I have friends that go there,” said Lila Khan, a sophomore on the executive board of Drake Democrats and outreach lead for Students Demand Action.
“LGBTQ plus rights and making sure that we advocate for minorities of all kinds and all that stuff. Definitely, that's probably my most important aspect of this upcoming election,” said Jemma Bullock, sophomore in landscape architecture at Iowa State University and executive director of the Iowa Queer Student Alliance.
"My father's town, Sahumi, Georgia, was invaded by the Red Army, even though it was already occupied by the Soviet Union and so forth. It was invaded, and he literally saw his friends like, like, killed and burned in front of him and so forth. So that type of story that I was told really influenced me on the gun issues, because he specifically mentioned that if we had some way to defend ourselves, it would have been different,” said Giorgi Gagua, senior in history and education at ISU.
“What frustrates me a lot about this issue is that, you know, both political, you know, presidential candidates, all the people running for Congress, they can all claim that, ‘Oh, when I get in, what I'm going to is solve the economy’ like my policies will. But the economy is such a complicated, multifaceted thing ... So I would just look for more transparency, and as we keep talking about that collaboration on how is everyone going to work together to improve the economy?” said Maddi Cave, senior in public relations and strategic political communication at Drake University and executive board member for Bulldog Catholic.
Gen Z on civic engagement and enthusiasm
“We disagree on a lot, but we both care about the future of Iowa. We both care about the future of our country, and we just have kind of different ways we think we should get to the goal at the end, or the light at the end of the tunnel, and we're able to be respectful to each other,” said Michael Mitchell, chair of the Drake Democrats, talking about his friend across the aisle, Dylan Englebrecht.
“I think Michael and I always go back to what is being at a university about? And that's about hearing other people's opinions, hearing about where they came from and how they approach a different issue than maybe is different from my own. So going in to it with that lens, you know, Michael and the leadership boards of College Republicans and Drake Democrats have always been able, throughout my time at Drake, to have a good relationship, not only to have good policy debates, because I know we don't agree on a lot, but to have, you know, good friendship, “ said Dylan Engelbrecht, chair of the Drake College Republicans.
“I think that being a Republican on campus is a model that you can have a different view and you can still have a cordial conversation with someone who you might disagree with. And so I think that that's a good thing. And I think showing that to college students is very important, especially as they're looking to join clubs, especially as they're looking to find themselves. And so I think that that is one of the best things that College Republicans can do, is to just be there and welcome people with open arms. There are things that you may disagree with and you may not, but that everybody is welcome to show their own opinions,” said Trey Wellman, vice chair of the Federation of College Republicans.
“I would say there was definitely a surge of enthusiasm when Harris took over. There is still always that contingency of anti-Trumpers, which, as it was mentioned, you either hate him or you like him, and I think he's at a baseline. So really with Democrats at this point, it's about providing kind of a clear alternative to what Trump is providing,” said Cole Lindaman, president of the ISU College Democrats and senior in civil engineering.
Gen Z on the political system
“I was very solid, not going to vote. I was thinking to myself, our system's broken, and I feel like me voting would be just reinforcing something that I already know for the past 50 years that got us here hasn't worked. I don't want to do that ... Until I did watch the debate ... After watching it, I felt that, first off, a big issue for me is affordable housing, and that's a question that I believe Kamala Harris addressed directly, and that whenever it was Trump's turn to speak, he was more so pointing out ‘that's not going to work.’ ‘What they're doing is wrong,’ or bringing up the puppies,” said Avrom Bailey, senior in mechanical engineering and president of the ISU Robotics Club.
“One of the reasons why I was drawn to ranked choice voting was it eliminates or drastically reduces the spoiler effect. So right now, candidates are being told, ‘Don't run. You might split the vote.’ So when a bunch of people with the same ideology or similar beliefs run, they split the vote amongst themselves, and so the evil person or the ideology that's not dominant wins. And so you're being told, ‘don't run, don't vote your choice, vote the major party.’ And so there's a lack of choice. You're being told what to do, and if you don't vote for the major party, you're letting the bad side win,” said Katie Babb, junior in political science and Spanish and intern at Better Ballot Iowa.
This Young Voter Voices series on River to River is sponsored by the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement located on the Drake University Campus.
