Republicans are urging the party to do a better job engaging with young voters after the GOP saw Generation Z voters cast ballots by large margins for Democrats in the November midterms, making the difference in key congressional and gubernatorial races.
While the party has long struggled with attracting younger voters, the 2022 midterm elections underscored the extent to which those struggles are a liability for it. Now, Republicans are calling on the party to step up its outreach, including by finding more Gen Z surrogates, engaging with young voters on social media platforms and speaking to issues those voters care about.
An analysis by Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) using day-after estimates suggests that voter turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds in 2022 was at the second highest of the last 30 years for a midterm election. In House races alone, the demographic favored Democratic candidates to Republicans 63 percent to 35 percent, remaining mostly consistent since 2020 but a slight drop from 2018, when the margin was 67 percent to 32 percent.
“Better health care, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, stuff like that … climate change, those issues are huge for Gen Z. And because the party kind of is a little bit slow on the uptake initially with kind of some of these issues … I think it kind of automatically slanted our generation to go more towards Democrat,” he noted.