Male Gen Z voters are breaking with President Donald Trump and the Republican party at large, recent polls show, less than a year after this same cohort defied convention and made a surprise shift right, helping Trump win the 2024 election.
Taken with wider polling suggesting Democrats will lead in the midterms, the findings on young men spell serious trouble for the Republican Party in 2026.
President Trump’s approval rating stands at 32 percent among 18-to-29-year-olds, and young men preferred Democratic control of Congress by a 12 percent margin, according to the recently released Harvard Youth Poll, which was conducted last month.
These trends took place against a larger dissatisfaction with the parties and the president, the poll found, in which neither Trump nor the Democrats nor the Republicans could claim higher than a one-third approval rating, though Democratic support is trending up and GOP approval is trending down since spring.
“Young Americans are sending a clear message: the systems and institutions meant to support them no longer feel stable, fair, or responsive to this generation,” John Della Volpe, Director of Polling at the Harvard Institute of Politics, said in a release alongside the findings. “Their trust in democracy, the economy, and even each other is fraying — not because they are disengaged, but because they feel unheard and unprotected in a moment of profound uncertainty.”
Younger Gen Z men, those born between 2002 and 2007, may be even more anti-Trump, according to October research from YouGov and the Young Men’s Research Project, a potential sign that their time living through the social upheavals of the Covid pandemic and not being political aware during the first Trump administration may be shaping their experience.
The research found that majorities of Gen Z men overall opposed pieces of the Trump agenda such as ongoing ICE crackdowns, eliminating vaccine requirements, and unilaterally firing federal workers, but that younger Gen Z members were even more opposed.
“Odds are they were not aware of just how unstable everything felt during that first administration,” Charlie Sabgir, the author of the report, told Vox. “So they would feel buyer’s remorse.”
The stirrings among Gen Z young men could be part of a larger youth turn against Trump.
The fall Yale Youth Poll found that young voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the president‘s job performance, a flip from their spring 2025 measure.
When the aperture widens to include millennials the disapproval is even more stark.
Nearly 60 percent of this combined group disapproves of how Trump is doing in office, according to a recently published University of Chicago poll conducted through November, a six-point drop in his favorability compared to the same survey last year.
Then again, majorities of those polled had unfavorable views of both parties.
“There is a real sense that these individuals and these parts of the administration are not delivering,” University of Chicago professor Cathy Cohen told NPR. “Young people are feeling like the state or the government is not, in fact, providing the opportunities that they’re seeking to advance their lives.”
On the heels of some improving economic signs, including the recently announced 4.3 percent third-quarter GDP growth, Trump may be on the upswing.
The president remains unpopular with young people, with a -34 percent net approval among adults aged 18 to 29 in November, but this was at least an improvement from his net -55 rating in October, according to an Economist/YouGov poll.
