Half of registered voters under the age of 30 plan to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, and one-third for former President Donald Trump — relatively unchanged according to the previous survey in August follow the new NBC News Gen Z Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.
Among young voters who say they will vote in November’s presidential election, Harris leads by 20 points, 56% to 36%. With some younger voters leaning toward other candidates on the ballot besides Harris and Trump, it’s just shy of the 24-point margin (60%-36%) President Joe Biden held in 2020 among voters under 30, according to an NBC News exit poll . .
Within Gen Z, there are marked divisions between different groups – and the gender gap is particularly significant.
Young women said they would vote for Harris over Trump by a margin of 33 points. The junior men were mostly even, with Harris holding a 2-point lead.
Men (46%) are more likely than women (30%) to say Trump has the right personality to be president. Reflecting this, women (65%) are more likely than men (55%) to say Harris has the right personality.
Gender differences spill over into the issues young voters say are most important to their votes. Inflation and the cost of living were ranked as the most important issues among both men (35%) and women (29%), although opinions differed on what followed, with 13% of women choosing abortion compared to 4% of men. Among men, 13% cited threats to democracy as the most important issue, compared to 9% of women.
There were also large gender differences in the role of abortion policy in candidate selection. Nearly half (48%) of young women said they would only vote for a candidate who shared their views on abortion, compared to 36% of men.
Approval from friends and family is more important than high-profile celebrities
While voters are bombarded with messages from politicians, political organizations and media outlets, 45% of young voters said they would consider the opinions of family, friends and co-workers the most when deciding which presidential candidate to support.
About a third of young voters said they would focus on endorsements from political leaders (38%) and organizations they belong to (31%).
Six in 10 Gen Z voters who said they planned to vote for Harris said it would strain their relationship if a friend planned to vote for Trump. On the other hand, only a quarter of those who planned to vote for Trump said their friendship would be strained if their friend planned to vote for Harris.
In an era where celebrities and influencers can influence more than our elected officials, celebrity endorsements are thought to have the potential to change the course of a political campaign. Perhaps the highest-profile endorsements of the 2024 cycle have come from pop superstar Taylor Swift, who backs Harris, and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who backs Trump.
Only 11% of Gen Z voters said Swift’s endorsement made them more likely to vote for Harris, while 17% said Elon Musk’s endorsement made them more likely to vote for Trump.
Indeed, these data suggest the possibility of some adverse effects in these endorsements. In Swift, 19% of young voters said her endorsement satisfied them little They are likely to vote for Harris, with 29% of voters saying Musk’s support backs them up little There is a possibility that he will vote for Trump.
However, only 8% of voters surveyed said they would look to celebrities as a potential source of information when deciding who to vote for.
Negative views on the country’s economy and direction
Only 19% of young voters say the economy is better in the country today than it was a year ago, while 57% say it is worse.
Younger voters are slightly more positive and more closely divided about their finances, with 30% saying they are better off than a year ago and 37% saying they are worse off.
The pessimism about the economy is reflected in the views about the country in general.
Only 22% of young voters said the country is on the right track — down 10 points from an NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z poll in August. Similarly, 77% said the country was headed in the wrong direction – up 10 points from August.
The views of the vice-presidential candidates have slightly decreased
Half of young voters have a favorable opinion of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, including 23% who rate him as an excellent VP choice. Another 27% have a negative opinion about him.
A third of young voters have a favorable opinion of Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, while 45% have an unfavorable opinion of him.
Overall, negative views of both vice presidential picks rose slightly from the August poll taken after the Democratic National Convention — and before Walz and Vance met in their early October debate.
This was the NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z poll Powered by SurveyMonkeya fast, intuitive feedback management platform where 20 million questions are answered daily. It was conducted online between October 10 and 21 among a national sample of 2,119 registered voters aged 18-29. The data are drawn from the total population of 18-29 year olds by sex, race, census tract (all from the American Community Survey), and partisanship (from the Cooperative Election Survey). The estimated margin of error for this poll is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The sampling error associated with subgroup results is higher.