President Donald Trump has traditionally performed far better among older voters than younger ones, and now at least one pollster is seeing evidence of this disaffection in the president’s own policies.
“Gen X and elder Millennials in shambles,” said pollster Frank Luntz on Tuesday. He retweeted a post by Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, who posted “Trump Accounts may soon be expanded even more to anyone under 40yrs old. That would be another 100 million people, on top of the 70 million kids and 3.5mil babies born each year. This according to Brad Gerstner who is the main guy spearheading efforts on this. He also said Elon is ‘tip of iceberg’ Nice scoop and piece on it from @LydiaMoynihan @nypost.”
The Trump administration has a long history of fraught relations with young people. In July, Trump’s then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt controversially told Fox News host Jesse Watters that “my generation — I hate to say it, Gen Z and those younger than me — have been raised with just silver spoons in their mouths, just getting everything handed to them.”
That same month, Generation Z analyst Rachel Janfaza described how younger Americans she surveyed said they had lost faith in the government in part because of the Trump administration’s seeming hostility to their interests and in part because of ongoing financial insecurity, and that this is reflected in their overall feelings about being American. Only 34 percent of young Americans 18–29 said they were proud of being American, compared to 43 percent of Americans ages 30–49 and 59 percent of Americans ages 50–64.
“I don’t think that younger folks have ever been more p—— off and pessimistic in terms of what we’re seeing from our government or faith in our country,” CNN data analyst Harry Enten said in June regarding young people being angry about both the government and America’s future.
A New York Times focus group in July interviewed young people who explained why they feel so disaffected from the Trump administration.
“We’re a humiliation across the world in terms of foreign policy,” Zachary, a 25-year-old scientist from Missouri who voted for Trump two years ago, told The New York Times. “The United States is not what it once was, and we can’t seem to drive costs down for the average American.”
Caleb, a 24-year-old Maine management consultant, told The New York Times, “When I see people working 60-plus hours a week in a trade and not able to make a dent in cost of living, it does feel like it’s gotten tougher, at least, to play by the rules.”