Gen Z men are significantly more gloomy about American politics than their elders, according to a new poll that looked at the attitudes of young male voters.
The poll was conducted by the Democratic polling company Blueprint 2024 among 1,348 male registered voters nationally, including an oversample of 611 young male voters aged 18 to 29.
It found that young men were more likely than their older counterparts to have a pessimistic view of the country and political system. Of the young men surveyed, 57 percent agreed with the statement that “nearly all politicians are corrupt and make money from their political power” while only 47 percent said they would rather be born in the U.S. than in any other country in the world.
Evan Roth Smith, Blueprint’s lead pollster, told Newsweek, “We found this latest polling of young men really does show just how depressed and negative and pessimistic they are about the future. We’ve seen this for all young people but seems especially pronounced for younger men.”
He added that because of factors such as the pandemic, poor wages, and how women are now earning more college degrees, “[young men] feel like the American dream and the promise of the life they thought was possible is slipping away or being taken away.”
The poll was conducted from October 9 to 13, and has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.
It also asked men about which topics they care about the most, and the youngest voters’ responses spell bad news for Harris.
The top five most important issues for young men in this election are inflation, jobs, the economy, corruption, and crime, according to the poll, which found that young men were more likely to trust Trump than Harris on all five.
They trust Trump more than Harris on inflation by 14 points, on jobs by 8 points, on the economy by 11 points, on crime by 10 points, and on corruption by 2 points.
Young men do trust Harris on some election issues, such as abortion, trangender rights, climate change, healthcare, social security, political correctness, and education. However, these issues do not rank in young men’s top five most important issues.
However, when asked about their thoughts on both candidates, young men were more likely than their older counterparts to have a favorable view of Harris. Among men aged 18 to 29, she saw a positive net favorability rating of +5, while in the 30 to 49 and 50+ brackets her favorability dropped to -2 and -5 respectively.
Still, her favorability was lower than Trump’s among both younger age groups. The youngest men gave him a net favorability of +6, while he saw a higher favorability of +9 among those aged 30 to 49. Those aged 50+ gave Trump a favorability score of -7.
Men were also asked their view on Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Biden received the lowest favorability rating across all groups, while Obama received by far the highest. The young respondents in particular gave him a favorability rating of +38, vastly exceeding every rating for all candidates across any age bracket.
Roth Smith said, “These men who were high school age or younger when Obama was elected President, what they remember Obama as was this celebratory moment in America where it seems like anything was possible. we had lived up to our promise and potential as a country. There’s a lot of nostalgia for that time.”
This dissatisfaction is reflected outside of just politics, as young people currently feel left behind, like the American dream does not apply to them, and that they do not have a lot of hope for the future.
This may not cost Harris the election, but Roth Smith says that if she wins, the Democratic party has a lot of work ahead in order to fix its relationship with young men.
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