Male Gen Z voters are drifting away from President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, new polling indicates, less than a year after the same group stunned observers by shifting right and helping carry Trump to victory in the 2024 election.
Alongside broader surveys suggesting Democrats are on track to lead in the midterms, the movement among young men points to real danger for Republicans heading into 2026.
President Trump’s approval rating sits at 32 percent among voters aged 18 to 29, and young men favor Democratic control of Congress by a 12 percent margin, according to the newly released Harvard Youth Poll conducted last month.
The poll also found a deeper frustration with politics overall, with neither Trump nor the Democrats nor the Republicans able to break past one-third approval, although Democratic numbers have been edging upward while GOP ratings have slipped 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, appear even more hostile to Trump, according to October research from YouGov and the Young Men’s Research Project, a possible sign that coming of age during the Covid pandemic and not being politically aware during Trump’s first term has shaped their outlook.
That research showed that most Gen Z men opposed key parts of the Trump agenda, including ongoing ICE crackdowns, rolling back vaccine requirements and unilaterally firing federal workers, with younger members of the cohort 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 shift among Gen Z men may be part of a broader youth backlash against Trump. The fall Yale Youth Poll found young voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the president’s job performance, reversing their spring 2025 reading, and when millennials are added, the picture is even more negative.
Nearly 60 percent of that combined group disapproves of how Trump is handling the presidency, according to a University of Chicago poll released through November, a six-point drop in his favorability from the same survey a year earlier. Majorities, however, still held unfavorable views of both major 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.”
Despite some encouraging economic news, including a newly announced 4.3 percent GDP growth rate in the third quarter, Trump remains deeply unpopular with young people. His net approval among adults aged 18 to 29 was still at minus 34 in November, though that was an improvement from a minus 55 reading in October, according to an Economist/YouGov poll.
