Despite making up 20% of the U.S. population, Gen Z has traditionally had low voter turnout, as exemplified by their 2016 turnout of just 43%. Key issues for young voters include inflation, economic challenges, housing costs, abortion, student loans, and the Israel-Hamas war. , climate change, and gun reform.
PHOENIX — In the final stages of the 2024 election, Democrats sent the first Gen Z member of Congress, Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost, to visit Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and Arizona State University in Tempe. Mr. Frost, accompanied by California Congressman Robert Garcia, tried to energize voters to get the Harris-Waltz ticket.
The Trump campaign is also reaching out to younger voters with the help of Turning Point Action, an outside group that leads turnout across swing states. On Thursday, Turning Point will host a town hall on the campus of High Point University in North Carolina, where vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance will be a special guest.
Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, make up about 20% of the U.S. population, but John Holbein, a professor of public policy, politics, and education at the University of Virginia, says, “The low voter turnout among young people is a contributing factor. It’s normal,” he said. In a recent interview. He is the author of the 2020 book “Creating Young Voters: Transforming Citizen Attitudes into Citizen Actions.” In 2016, only 43% of young Americans voted.
Young voters are most concerned about inflation and the economy, as well as other issues such as abortion, the Israel-Hamas war, climate change and gun reform policies, according to the survey.
Republican strategy to engage Gen Z
Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, who will be joining Vance, said in a press release: , Generation X, and Boomers. ”
“They’ve grown up in an America where they’re expected to scale back the American Dream,” he says. Kirk said these voters are “the most addicted, depressed, prescribed and anxious of any generation.”
They inherited an “America in decline,” he said, but have refused to “settle for anything less than their parents.” Inflation in recent years has delayed many big milestones for young people, including buying a car, living alone, making a down payment on a home and saving for retirement, as found in the NBC News Stay Tuned Generation Z poll. I found out that
lobbying for democracy
Democratic Rep. Frost, meanwhile, said Gen Z voters bring up the topic of housing costs all the time when speaking to students outside NAU’s student union.
“They’re worried about what they’re going to do to become a homeowner. I always love it when they bring this issue up because I can sympathize with them — and this is a 27-year-old lawmaker. “It’s still a problem,” he said, as reported by KAFF News Radio. Mr. Frost said he had been living on credit cards since taking office, and acknowledged that his application to rent an apartment was also rejected due to poor credit.
Food insecurity is also a common problem. “If you look at these problems, Kamala Harris is the only one who has a plan to solve them. Donald Trump’s entire plan and rhetoric is about saying ‘no’ to what she’s proposing. ,” Frost said in a press release.
