An unprecedented phenomenon, which could be decisive on November 5: the duel between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris reveals fractures between young voters, always more progressive, and young voters, more of whom are turning to the right.
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If American youth remains overwhelmingly committed to left-wing ideas, the former president and the vice-president have noted these new dynamics and their program for Friday illustrates this wonderfully.
After multiple meetings with influencers keen on violent sports and cryptocurrencies, the former president visited Joe Rogan in Texas, a star podcaster, followed by millions of listeners and particularly popular with young men.
In an extremely close election, where every vote counts, the Republican candidate wants to mobilize certain young Americans with virilist rhetoric.
Kamala Harris will also be in Texas, with a very strong message for young women: the defense of the right to abortion, suppressed by this conservative state. And a concert by Beyoncé, queen of pop feminism.
A Harvard University poll conducted in September among Americans of both sexes aged 18 to 29 shows some pretty stark disparities in the political preferences of young women and young men.
70% of young voters plan to vote for Kamala Harris, and 23% for Donald Trump. The vice-president received 53% of the voting intentions of young men, and the former president 36%, a much smaller gap.
Another poll, published by NBC, is even more striking: in the same age group of 18-29 years, 59% of young women lean Democratic and only 26% Republican. But among young men, the two opponents are almost equal: 42% of voting intentions for her, 40% for him.
Abortion and cost of living
“I am especially worried about women’s rights. They are already trying to take away the right to abortion, what will be the next step? asks Madeline Tena.
This 18-year-old medical student, met in Arizona, says she primarily gets information from TikTok: “I’m going to vote for Kamala Harris because, from what I see on social networks, she makes a better impression than Trump” who she says “looks really childish sometimes.”
Zackree Kline, 21, will give her vote to the Republican. “Everything was a lot cheaper when he was president,” says the Pennsylvania resident, who “works every day of the week” to get by, both as a funeral home employee and a restaurant team leader. .
Jennie Sweet-Cushman, professor of political science at Chatham University, notes this shift to the right among young men, widely commented on in the press, but is also interested in the evolution of young women, who are increasingly educated and ” less and less likely to identify as Republican.”
“When I ask my students if they want children, the young men most of the time say yes, and almost all the young women no,” she reports.
Politics and religion
A growing number of young American women, according to several studies, are turning away from conservative conceptions of the family, the couple, and sexuality, and are also distancing themselves from religion, in a country where faith and politics can often be intimately linked.
In April, the Survey Center on American Life published the results of a survey of Americans who had left the religion in which they grew up.
In every generation since World War II, the majority of people who have turned their backs on the faith of their childhood have been men.
In generation Z, those born between the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2010s, the trend is suddenly reversed: for the first time, the group of people who have abandoned their religion is mainly made up of women, at 54%.
Which dynamic will prevail on November 5: a massive vote of young women for Kamala Harris? Or an unprecedented mobilization in favor of Donald Trump from a young and male electorate who historically votes little?
Kelly Dittmar, a professor of political science at Rutgers University, does not venture to make a prediction, especially with an indirect electoral system, where a few tens of thousands of voters in a few key states decide the outcome.
But she nevertheless recalls that “women have been voting more than men in the United States for forty years. There is no indication that it will be different in 2024.”
