College-aged Americans now favor GOP over Dems, Yale youth poll shows

Many college-aged Americans are now supporting the Republican Party over the Democratic Party, according to the Spring 2025 Yale Youth Poll released Tuesday.

The student-led survey found that when asked whether they would vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate in the 2026 congressional elections in their district, voters aged 18 to 21 favored the Republican candidate by a margin of 11.7 percentage points. Meanwhile, voters aged 22 to 29 favored the Democratic candidate by a margin of 6.4 points.

While the survey showed young voters gravitating towards the Republican Party, many respondents under 30 expressed an unfavorable view of both President Donald Trump and key Democratic Party figures. Among voters under 30, Trump’s net favorability rating was -17.9 while failed 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ favorability was -1. However, former President Joe Biden’s favorability rating among these voters was even worse than Trump’s at -19.5.

“Politicians often promise things to young voters and reach out to young voters, but they can’t do that if they don’t have an understanding of what young voters believe and where young voters are,” Arjun Warrior, a data scientist for the Yale Youth Poll, told the Yale Daily News on Wednesday. “That’s why polls like this are really important because they provide insight — albeit imperfect insight, but insight nonetheless — into what young voters believe.”

Comparatively, Harris led Trump by 21 points among young voters ahead of the November 2024 presidential election, according to a Yale Youth Poll released in October 2024.

The Democratic Party has reportedly been struggling with developing clear messaging and communicating with working class voters following their party’s losses in the 2024 election cycle. Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin wrote in a February memo that “for the first time in modern history, Americans now see the Republicans as the party of the working class and Democrats as the party of the elites.”

Democrats have also been grappling with a string of recent polls showing record-low approval ratings among voters. The party is also facing several retirements ahead of the 2026 midterms, including Democratic Michigan Sen. Gary Peters and Democratic Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith and Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

Notably, some young voters shifted toward Trump in the 2024 presidential election cycle. According to AP VoteCast, over half of male voters under 30 supported Trump in the November 2024 presidential election, a shift from 2020, when Biden had won a similar share.

Trump notably targeted young male voters during his 2024 presidential campaign, including by making appearances on several podcasts popular with male audiences, such as “The Joe Rogan Experience” and “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von.”

The Yale Youth Poll sampled 4,100 self-reported registered voters, including 2,025 voters aged 18-29, enabling a comparison of young voters to the electorate as a whole. The survey was conducted between April 1 and 3.

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