Why America’s Zoomers Are Turning MAGA

Tatem Carroll, an 18-year-old in Oregon’s Rogue Valley, just graduated high school. She used to think that once she got her diploma, she’d “get the hell out” of her parents’ house. Now, she says she’s “scared shitless” about the future.

“I’m like, am I gonna live with my parents forever because our economy is trash?” wonders Carroll, who speaks to me over Zoom from her childhood bedroom. “It’s terrifying.”

She tells me about her boyfriend, a Christian like herself. She says they’ve been dating for three years and that she can’t wait to marry him. But they will have to wait to start their life together, given inflation and the rising cost of living.

“I’m like, when is that gonna happen?” she says. “Because we couldn’t even afford to rent an apartment in my small town.”

About two years ago, she said, she first thought about politics when she started driving. Her parents told her all she had to pay for were gas and car insurance, but she says it was tough to get by—let alone save anything. Her retail job at the local mall was based fully on commission, meaning her paychecks could fluctuate from $400 to $1,000 a month.

“I was like, ‘This is terrible. I’m working so that I can pay for gas to get to school and to get to work so that I can make more money to pay for gas,’ ” says Carroll, twisting her side ponytail. “And then I thought, ‘Oh, this is because of Biden.’ ”

She remembers that under Trump, when she was around 12 years old, gasoline often hovered around $2 a gallon. Now she’s used to seeing the gas station sign read $4 or more. She says everyone she knows is in the same boat—“broke” and living with their parents. While most economists admit Biden has little control over the price of gas, voters are still prepared to punish him for it.

“I feel like I could’ve afforded a future,” she says about life under Trump. “But now I’m shit out of luck.”

Carroll is one of a growing number of Gen Z Americans, born between 1997 and 2012, who are planning to vote for Trump this November. The idea of voting Republican before 30 is like going on birth control at 60. You could, but why would you? Which is why the latest polling on the political leanings of America’s youth is so shocking.

New polls show that the Gen Z vote, which Biden won by about 20 points in 2020, is now in play. A recent New York Times/Siena College survey—taken after Biden’s disastrous debate flop—puts Trump ahead of Biden by eight points among registered voters aged 18–29. And Pew research, conducted from February 1 to June 10, 2024, shows the GOP is leading among those under 30.

New polls show that the Gen Z vote, which Biden won by about 20 points in 2020, is now in play. (Allison Bailey via Getty Images)

“Trump is a lot more competitive than he was four years ago,” said John Della Volpe, a Harvard pollster who helped advise Biden’s 2020 campaign. Much of that, he says, boils down to young men, who data show are politically drifting away from their increasingly liberal female peers.

“They generally think of Trump as the antihero,” says Della Volpe, once known as the Biden campaign’s “Gen Z whisperer.” “He’s a voice against the establishment.”

That kind of “cult of personality,” he adds, “could be quite attractive” to young men.

Trump has recently tried to reach young voters by joining TikTok, the platform he once tried to ban but has since embraced—and that has embraced him back. After news of his criminal conviction broke on May 30, many Gen Z voters flocked to the app to proudly announce they were “voting for the felon,” turning the phrase into a TikTok trend. A few days later, Trump posted his first TikTok, showing him rubbing elbows with UFC CEO Dana White while greeting fans, a post that earned him more than a million fo