Gen Z caused the US election shock – and could do the same here

Donald Trump’s landslide election win was driven by an unlikely factor: America’s young.

Voters aged 18 to 29 – Gen Z – moved towards the former president by a staggering 20 net points, much more than any other age group, according to the latest analysis by pollsters at JL Partners, which was alone in accurately predicting Trump’s landslide.

If borne out by later data, that means this election’s “red shift” to Trump was driven entirely by the young. That is a dramatic finding, and one I think with major implications for the future of politics in the UK.

To understand it, we’ve looked back on our conversations with American voters from throughout the past year – often held in their own homes.

We heard from José, a young, non-college graduate in Phoenix, Arizona, who told us that the years from 2016 to 2020, Trump’s first term, were financially the best of his life.

Jose didn’t exactly like Trump, but he saw him as a “hard-a**” who “doesn’t take any s***” – someone with the grit to turn an economy around.

We heard from Gabriel, a young, mixed-race factory worker in Tennille, Georgia, who told us of the social pressure many non-whites felt to vote Democrat, even if they were themselves instinctive conservatives.

Gabriel believed many young non-whites were “waking up” and resisting this pressure.

And we heard from Sheree, a young, black woman from Michigan who worried that Kamala Harris seemed inauthentic and insubstantial: “She don’t feel genuine at all.”

These conversations, along with our polling, helped us understand this story ahead of time – and made us one of the most accurate pollsters of the election.

The seismic rightward move was powered by two key subgroups of young voters: non-whites and non-college graduates.

The pro-Trump swing was nearly four times higher among young non-whites than among young whites, and roughly three times higher among young non-college graduates than among graduates.

That reflects two demographic revolutions that have swept American politics since at least 2016: the weakening of Democrat dominance among non-whites, and Republicans becoming the party of non-college graduates.

Some older Americans have been swept along by these revolutions, too. But it is young Americans that seem more sensitive to these underlying shifts, and more willing to change.

This is likely a longer term pattern, but there is reason to think this latest generation is particularly fluid. And not just in America. After all, Gen Z inhabits an unprecedentedly fragmented media environment, with more choice than ever before in news, opinion and content.

And party identification appears to be on the decline, with young Americans increasingly likely to call themselves Independents.

I believe there is reason to believe these same patterns could emerge in the UK. If they do, it could mean not just the end of the widening polarisation of voting habits of the young and old, but its reversal.

Not only are Gen Z voters not destined to move ever further left, they are likely the group that can be politically moved the furthest and farthest. That means there is an opportunity in Britain’s young for whomever can claim it.

While politicians on the left or the right could benefit, not every party is equally well placed to do so. Different factors are at play in Britain than America, but the implications may be similar.

Young Americans are moving further and faster than older Americans in response to racial and educational realignment. Young Brits are moving further and faster than older Brits in response to party system fragmentation: the apparent crumbling of the big two parties’ dominance of UK elections.

In the July election, only around half of under-30s voted for one of Labour and the Conservatives. Older age groups were much more likely to do what they have always done and back one of the big two.

That makes the most obvious beneficiaries of a swing among British Gen Z-ers the Liberal Democrats, Greens, independents – and even Reform UK. That could spell trouble for both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch the next time Britain goes to the polls.

In our increasingly multi-party system, Labour and the Conservatives can no longer rely on political inertia to maintain their dominance.

Joe Alder is senior research associate at JL Partners