Young Americans ‘rebelling to the Right’: college Republican leader
Data suggests college-age men are shifting right politically – with some pointing to the recent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump as a reason.
Jordan Miller, 22, of Arizona, told The Free Press he decided to vote for the Republican presidential candidate over the weekend after watching Trump’s response to being shot at a Pennsylvania rally.
“It made me feel like I can trust him, and he’s going to stand up for this country,” Miller said. “I don’t think there’s very many people in this country that after they get shot, one inch from their brain, would be able to get up and essentially tell the country to fight …”
Prior to Saturday, Miller said he had been planning to vote for third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Recent polls show a political shift among young men like Miller.
Gallup Survey Center on American Life polling found a sharp drop in young men who support the Democratic Party, going from 51 percent in 2016 to 39 percent in 2023.
Democratic support among young men (18-29) collapsing
✔️ 2016: 51% young men ID Democrat
✔️ 2023: 39% young men ID Democrat
Source: @dcoxpolls pic.twitter.com/bwgC9llRKi
— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) July 15, 2024
While the shift is more apparent among young men, some young women are changing their positions, too.
Eden Rios, 17, of Minnesota, said she used to be “very anti-Trump.” But as a Catholic, she said she cannot in good conscience vote for President Joe Biden, the Democratic incumbent, because of his abortion stance.
“I don’t think that murdering children should be legal, so my vote will definitely go to Trump,” she told The Free Press.
Another young woman, Naomi, who recently graduated from the University of Maryland, told The Free Press she is considering voting for Trump because of how Biden and other liberals responded to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
Recent polls from the New York Times/Siena College and the National Public Opinion Reference Survey also have found a drop in young voters’ support for Biden, according to the report.
However, Biden campaign pollster Celinda Lake expressed skepticism about the shift. Another poll last week from Pew Research found “Biden holds a wide advantage over Trump among voters under 30 (48% to 28%).”
“Those are voters who already were Trump supporters,” Lake told The Free Press. “They were already galvanized.”
But Noah Jenkins, a junior at Vanderbilt University, said he thinks his generation is “rebelling to the Right.”
Being young and conservative is countercultural, Jenkins, the chairman of the Tennessee College Republican Committee, wrote in a recent column at Newsweek.
“We understand that we are the future of the country and will have to inherit whatever is left over,” he wrote. “The stakes for us are much higher than it is for the establishment, justifying rebellion or, specifically in our case, doing what for many is unimaginable: voting for the evil orange man.”
MORE: 15 times academia demonized Trump before assassination attempt
IMAGE: Arizona State University College Republicans United/Instagram
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