Voters between 18 and 27 usually have the least effect on the political betting sites – but they could decide this year’s election.
How do you do, fellow Generation Zers? Did you know that we will rule the planet someday? Please join my cult – but first, fill out this survey that divulges all your personal information to me.
Wow, that was easy. Now that I’ve done my journalism, I can tell you that “young voters” are indeed leaning about 4-6 percentage points towards Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, as previously indicated in polls by The New York Times and Axios-Generation Lab. At the same time, a Harvard CAPS-Harris survey had 64% of Gen Z voters approving Trump’s work during his term as president. That’s up from 57% among voters at large.
Gen Z loves Donald Trump more than any other age group https://t.co/Y3hWdHG40l pic.twitter.com/vayj5vMpel
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) February 27, 2024
There’s the youth of today for you. As a whole, this demographic will have less impact on November 5 than millennials, Generation X, or baby boomers. But every vote counts, especially in a tight race like this. What are Biden and Trump doing to woo these voters, if anything?
Why Is Biden On TikTok?
Chances are you already saw how the Biden presidential campaign started using the TikTok social media platform during Super Bowl LVIII this past February. Their first video with Biden, titled “lol hey guys,” asked whether he was rooting for Kansas City or San Francisco (his answer: Philadelphia), and whether there was any truth behind the Taylor Swift Super Bowl conspiracy (“I’d get in trouble if I told you.”).
@bidenhqlol hey guys♬ Fox nfl theme – Notrandompostsguy
Biden’s performance may have been a bit cringe, especially in these difficult times. And TikTok is the same Chinese-owned app that the government is threatening to ban over security concerns – although the U.S. House of Representatives just approved a somewhat muted bill compared to the one they passed in March, which wasn’t getting anywhere with the U.S. Senate.
However, there’s a good reason for the 81-year-old president to assume all this risk: TikTok is increasingly becoming the No. 1 place where Gen Z voters are getting their news. According to a Pew Research report from last November, 32% of Americans aged 18 to 29 are “regularly” using TikTok for news, up from 26% in 2022 and by far the largest number across the generations.
Why Isn’t Trump On TikTok?
Maybe there just isn’t enough money in it for him. Generally speaking, the older Americans get, the more likely they are to vote Republican – or vote at all, for that matter – and the less likely they are to be on TikTok.
As of last December, there also weren’t any Republicans from either the House or the Senate with verified TikTok accounts. There’s no shortage of right-wing commentators and influencers willing to amplify everything Trump says and does, but that lack of direct outreach to Gen Z voters is risky business for the GOP.
Does Gen Z Even Matter?
Absolutely – and that goes for whether you’re trying to be elected president, or whether you’re trying to find a juicy line on the politics odds board at your preferred online sportsbook.
You do have to be careful with those polls, though. Remember that Steve Buscemi meme I invoked earlier? Turns out that “young” can mean different things to different people. Some polls, like those Pew Research ones, use ages 18-29; others, like last month’s NBC News poll that had Trump ahead 44-42 among young voters, use ages 18-34. What are those millennials doing in my data?
Oh, and that Harvard CAPS-Harris survey? With 64% saying Trump did a good job in his first term? That was for respondents aged 18-24, meaning some of them were 10 when Trump became president.
Any way you slice it, these are relatively small sample sizes compared to other generations – and they don’t even capture all of Generation Z, which ends with people born in 2012. So given all that, you can understand why Trump and the Republicans are spending their money elsewhere.
And there might not be much money left to spend. The Republican National Committee, in their latest filing with the Federal Election Commission, claimed to have $8.7 million in cash on hand, down from $21.35 million in 2016.
This was before Lara Trump was installed as co-chair of the RNC on March 8, a move that has drawn criticism from at least some Republicans – including Gen Zers like Ayden David Marietta, a Ron DeSantis supporter who called the new RNC leadership “idiots” and screamed in all caps for the return of the party of Lincoln, Coolidge and Reagan.
That’s right: Today’s kids are all about Calvin Coolidge. At press time, the #calvincoolidge account has 13.4 million views on TikTok, although that’s a bit shy of the 14.3 million views for the Calvin Coolidge Body Pillow. Maybe Trump could learn a lesson or two from “Silent Cal.”
