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Why Some Socially Liberal Gen-Z Voters Aren’t Leaving The GOP
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AUG. 23, 2021, AT 6:00 AM
Why Some Socially Liberal Gen-Z Voters Aren’t Leaving The GOP
By Alex Samuels
Graphics by Elena Mejía
Filed under Political Outliers
Mack Bair, 24, supports same-sex marriage. Matthew C., 22, backs marijuana legalization and Luke T., 22, is solidly pro-abortion rights, (both of whom asked to not use their last names out of fear of retribution for their political views). John Henke, 20, says he believes climate change is happening — and that humans are playing a role.
At first blush, these young men might seem like progressive voters. But they’re not: All four voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020 and, for those old enough, in 2016 as well.
They’re all also part of Generation Z, America’s youngest adult generation, which is more ethnically and racially diverse than any generation before it.
The Pew Research Center defines Gen Zers as those born from 1997 onward, though children born in 2010 and after qualify for Generation Alpha.
" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border: 0px; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 143, 213); text-decoration-line: none; position: relative;">1 And similar to millennials, who are now in their mid-20s to early 40s, members of Gen Z are more liberal on a number of key social issues than older generations. According to Pew’s 2020 verified voter survey, millennials and Gen Zers also backed Biden over Trump in that year’s election, by a 20-point margin.
Pew told FiveThirtyEight that they did not have a large enough sample to share the vote choice for just Gen-Z voters, who, per Pew, made up just 8 percent of the electorate in 2020.
But despite the generation’s overall progressive bent, this hasn’t translated into overwhelming Democratic support. In fact, some research suggests that Gen Zers are no more likely to identify as members of the Democratic Party than registered voters in the overall electorate, and a plurality are unwilling to identify with either political party. That means that, despite their overwhelming support of Biden in the presidential election, there is also a small — but, so far, solid — chunk of Gen Z that identifies as Republican.
To better understand who these voters are and what motivates them to align with a party that has remained conservative on many issues important to Gen Z, I looked at polling data and political science for clues. I also spoke with six Gen-Z voters who voted for Trump and either identify as Republican or lean Republican. What I learned is that most of them break with the mainstream of the Republican Party on many social and cultural issues, but solidly agree with the GOP’s stances on the economy. They also think the Democratic Party, as it is now, has veered too far left, specifically with its stances on immigration, gun control and race.
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