The shift may have less to do with optimism about Democrats than with young voters’ growing disillusionment with Republicans and Trump.
In 2024, men ages 18 to 29 cast their votes for President Donald Trump at higher rates than at any time in the last several decades. Exit polls at the time left Democrats scratching their heads with questions of why they lost young men in the first place and how they could win them back. The question induced hours of Zoom meetings with Democratic operatives, soul-searching from Democratic politicians, and the political nominations of relatable-looking men in 2026.
Two years later, young men have shifted significantly to the left, according to New York Times polling conducted this month.
Support for Democrats is up 15 percentage points among young voters since President Donald Trump was re-elected, with the most pronounced political shifts happening among young men. In 2024, Gen Z was divided almost evenly by political affiliation, with 55 percent identifying as Democrats. As of late 2026, that number has grown to 70 percent.
Shifts away from the executive’s political party are common during midterm elections. However, this go-around, increased favorability of Democrats seems particularly compounded by the president’s abysmal approval rating among the youngest voters. Just 16 percent of people aged 18 to 29 approved of Trump’s performance as president, a further 11 points beyond the second-most disapproving group (Millennials).
From the poll’s breakout questions, Gen Z is almost unanimously unimpressed with Trump’s record on affordability: 94 percent told Times pollsters that economic conditions were poor or fair. They also overwhelmingly disapproved of the war in Iran (87 percent).
When asked which party had a better handle on the economy, immigration, health care, corruption, gas prices, foreign wars, AI, data centers, and cost of living, the majority of Gen Z pointed at Democrats. They also criticized Republicans for being extreme and corrupt.
However, all is not rosy for Democrats with this uptick in young Democrat self-identification.
Data from the Times show a simultaneous uptick in the youngest voters saying America’s problems are so bad, they could make the country fail. That concern rose from over a third (38 percent) in 2024 to more than half (53 percent) in 2026.
Thus, the shift to the left may have less to do with optimism about Democrats than with young voters’ growing disillusionment with Republicans and Trump.
A 27-year-old truck driver, Isaack Juarez, hinted at this when speaking to Times reporter Claire Cain Miller. Juarez said he’d voted for Trump in 2024 but felt disappointed with the presidency so far. When Miller asked him why, Juarez said the economy hasn’t done as well as he hoped, and Trump’s immigration agenda has caused his friends to run from ICE.
Then Juarez said that in the 2024 election lead-up, “the whole woke thing was going on, the MeToo movement, and the left got super loud and I guess a lot of people thought it was too loud and it pushed them away. But now I feel like the right is being too loud and I think it’s pushing a whole lot of people left.”
There we have it: party switches can be driven by annoyance. It’s possible this is what Democratic operatives discovered while performing autopsies on Woke 1. And it’s possible that Republicans will discover the same thing following November 3, if the House and Senate turn blue.
What could the Trump administration take away from such findings? Voters care more about gas prices at home than regime change in Iran; they prefer general border security to maximizing deportations; and they really don’t like it when Russians cover the costs of Donald Trump Jr.’s post-wedding bash in the Bahamas.