The Republican Party continues to grapple with floundering support from young men, a group that moved heavily towards Donald Trump in 2024, with a report from USA Today finding that the party now believes these voters "cannot be counted on" to save them from a midterms wipeout.
The new report from Monday centered on the latest in a long line of surveys that found Trump's support among young voters, especially young men, has dwindled dramatically since his reelection. This survey, a focus group of six young men attending New Hampshire's Saint Anselm College, who gave Trump's second term "mixed reviews," reserving particular criticism for his failure to address the cost-of-living and the brutality of his mass deportation agenda. Each participant voted for Trump in 2024 and, despite their disappointments since then, said they do not regret doing so.
Per USA Today's report, Tyler Witzgall, a 20-year-old sophomore, said that Trump "for all his accomplishments, has fallen short on issues that shape their daily lives, such as high prices," which the outlet called a "sentiment common among his peers." He ultimately graded Trump's performance with a C or C-minus.
"I'm still going to graduate and be in an enormous amount of debt. I won’t be able to buy a home for a while," Witzgall said, summing up his disappointment with Trump.
Ian Pomfret, another 20-year-old sophomore, was more forgiving of Trump's term, grading it with a B-plus, but even a "solid" Trump backer like him had marked criticisms of the president's handling of immigration issues, which he called a "huge problem."
"The ICE thing is a huge problem," Pomfret said, making particular reference to the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. "I feel like there is a better way of going about it than raiding and killing and instant deportation."
Tyler Delaney, a 19-year-old freshman, said that Trump's relentless snubbing of Democrats and rejection of compromise and cooperation are likely to backfire on him if the opposition wins big in the midterms.
"It gets to a point where you need to have some bipartisanship, and I think that's gonna hit Trump hard after the midterms," he said.
John Della Volpe, "a pollster who specializes in the Gen Z vote," told USA Today that, while young voters are not known to turn out in midterm years, their influence can tip close races, and all signs now indicate that the GOP cannot bet on their support this year.
"All evidence in the last 15 or 16 months is that this cohort cannot be counted on at this stage to be reliable Republican voters," Della Volpe explained. "Mostly because they haven't felt tangible improvements in their day-to-day lives."
