Young voters shifted sharply toward Democrats in 2026 midterms
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The gist
About 7 in 10 voters under 30 backed Democratic House candidates in the 2026 midterms.
The reversal of 2024's Republican gains in this group helped decide control of Congress.
Background
Donald Trump, President of the United States, made gains with parts of the traditional Democratic coalition in 2024, including young voters and young men, a shift that drew heavy media focus on the "manosphere" and podcasters such as Joe Rogan. In the 2026 midterms that reversed: the AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 voters in all 50 states, found young voters swung sharply left, and The Hill reported the results suggested the GOP boom with young people is over, at least for now.
How it unfolded
- Mar 9, 2026 –23, 2026The Yale Youth Poll surveyed 3,429 registered voters nationwide, with an oversample of 2,008 voters under 35, and found Democrats opening large leads among voters under 30.
- Nov 3, 2026Voters cast ballots in the 2026 midterms; younger voters who had swung toward Trump in 2024 shifted back to the left in House races, helping hand Democrats control of Congress.
- Nov 4, 2026The AP Voter Poll showed about 7 in 10 voters under 30 nationally supported the Democratic candidate in their local U.S. House race, while about 3 in 10 voted Republican.
- Nov 4, 2026Times Voter Trends preliminary data showed young voters shifted left by more than 30 percentage points, the largest shift of any age group, with young men moving nearly 40 points toward Democrats.
- Nov 4, 2026Young voters shifted toward Democrats in each Senate race where the party picked up a seat, including Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio and North Carolina.
- Nov 5, 2026The Hill reported that Trump won 43 or 44 percent of voters under 30 in 2024, depending on the survey, and that Tuesday's results suggested the GOP boom with young people is over, at least for now.
Key terms
- midterms
- US general elections held near the midpoint of a president's four-year term, when all House seats and about a third of Senate seats are contested.
- GOP
- The Republican Party, one of the two major political parties in the United States.
- AP VoteCast
- A survey of American voters and nonvoters conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Associated Press and other news outlets.
Source: Wikipedia
Who’s saying what
- Analysts
- The AP Voter Poll found Democratic performance among voters under 30 far exceeded the support this group gave Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 AP VoteCast survey.
- Analysts
- Times Voter Trends preliminary data put the leftward shift among young voters at more than 30 percentage points, the largest of any age group.
- Expert
- Rutgers University's Koning said more than 7 in 10 young voters sided with Democrats, a large double-digit shift from Trump's reelection.
- Caution
- The Hill framed the results as suggesting the GOP boom with young people is over, at least for now.
Still unverified
The New York Times analysis is based on preliminary data on U.S. House vote shifts from Times Voter Trends, which estimates the 2026 results by age, race, education and gender for every state; Trump's 2024 share of voters under 30 was 43 or 44 percent, depending on the survey.