Opinion: Turns out Gen Z wasn't completely sold on Harris. Men flocked to Trump.
Against all expectations, Donald Trump won his second term in office. It's a victory he can thank, in part, Gen Z men for.
Voting data from The Wall Street Journal indicates that Trump overperformed among Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, compared with his marks from 2020 and made far greater gains among men than women.
Despite what many pundits (including myself) thought, it turns out the Trump-Vance campaign’s frat-bro conservatism strategy worked, and was a big part of what won them the White House.
Republicans struggled among Gen Z, until now
Gen Z as a whole shifted right in 2024, exacerbating a trendline that now spans the past three elections. While Republicans made steady gains among young voters in both 2020 and 2022, Trump's gains this year show that the GOP might not be as weak as many thought.
Between 2020 and 2024, Gen Z men shifted 15 percentage points rightward, the largest age/gender swing in this election. Women of the same age range moved 7 points in the same direction.
Opinion: Republicans have a Gen Z problem
But it wasn't just the shift in men that pushed Trump over. He saw spikes in minority voters, according to NBC News data.
Trump overperformed recent preelection polls, which indicated he had about a 20-point disadvantage among Gen Z, and even more of a deficit among likely Gen Z voters.
A big part of that shift has to do with the economy, the No. 1 issue for Gen Z as a whole and one they trust Trump with more than Vice President Kamala Harris: 31% of Gen Z said the economy was their priority before the election, an issue that voters have long preferred Trump on, despite some recent tightening of the polls on the issue.
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Even though young Americans favor Harris’ character and her policy on abortion, a major motivator of the vote in 2022, Trump’s competitiveness on the economy was enough to bring the vote tighter among the youth.
Gen Z is still a problem for Republicans, but they have a path to victory
Gen Z women remain more left-leaning than men, which is why Trump ended up losing the generation as a whole. However, the 15-point swing in his favor among Gen Z men in this election compared with 2020 has mitigated most of the Democrats’ advantage.
Opinion: Trump is president again and Democrats can blame Biden's ego
Young Americans still favor Democrats, but Trump has shown a path to victory. Young men and women evidently care about very different things.
If Trump can deliver on the economy, he can confirm much of the reason that young voters broke more in his favor, even though they break with him on most social issues. To capitalize on the surprise comeback among young adults, Republicans need to actually deliver results on the core issue that matters.
If Trump fails to deliver on the economic success that he and the GOP have promised, Republicans could have a hard time defending the inevitable tomfoolery that happens during a second Trump term to Americans.
Right now, young Americans can put up with Trump if the economy does well, but that could quickly change if his protectionist trade policies have a negative impact on Americans’ pockets.
The Gen Z vote remains one of the most impressive feats of Trump’s reelection success, and he owes it to young Americans to actually deliver on the promises he’s made.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Why did Trump win again? Look how Gen Z men voted