Younger Gen Z voters are breaking ranks with their older zoomer counterparts – and prior generations – and expressing a preference for the Republican Party in historic numbers, according to a new poll. This potentially seismic shift in the electorate could be a sign of a broader political realignment toward the GOP in the years ahead.

According to Yale University’s Spring 2025 Yale Youth Poll, voters ages 18-21 said they would favor a Republican candidate in the 2026 congressional elections by an astonishing 11.7 points, while 22-29 year olds said they would favor a Democrat candidate by 6.4 points. If accurate, these results suggest a truly unprecedented political divide within a generation of Americans.

Zachary Donnini, the lead data scientist for the Yale Youth Poll, highlighted this trend on X. He noted this crosstab aligns with a “growing body of evidence” that corroborates the shift, including the many college campus precincts that swung hard toward Trump from 2020 to 2024.

While this surge is particularly pronounced among young men, young women are shifting too – albeit at a slower rate. Still, Trump picked up 11 points from 2020 to 2024 among young women.

Yale’s finding threatens to dismantle conventional political wisdom that young voters reliably vote Democrat. But, considering the circumstances that colored this cohort’s most formative years, their conservative awakening is hardly surprising.

For starters, the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the harsh and heavy hand of government intervention in the private lives of young people.

Graduations and proms were cancelled, senior football seasons called off, and countless other opportunities for social and academic growth were irrevocably lost. Family milestones were reduced to masked encounters as teenagers were forced to watch their grandparents age and die behind glass. Lockdowns closed schools, and mandates dictated young people’s lives as they witnessed their parents’ livelihoods decimated by Democrat COVID policies.

Normal rites of passage into adulthood were simply erased, replacing the excitement of youth with anxiety and uncertainty – and Democrats were to blame.

Taken together, these experiences created a deep mistrust of government institutions that permanently altered the outlook of America’s youngest adults.

The vaccine debate also became a social minefield. Diverging from the mainstream narrative resulted in ostracization. Friendships ended, and high school classrooms became breeding grounds for judgment, fear, and suspicion. At the collegiate level, the dismissive treatment of religious vaccine exemptions reinforced the sense that institutions of higher education preferred worshipping at the altar of ideological conformity over intellectual freedom.

Contact tracing continued the descent into a dystopian nightmare. Schools became quasi-surveillance states, with teachers and administrators actively encouraging students to rat out their peers for breaking “social distancing” edicts. The experience left many with a deep distrust of authority – and created plenty of reason to be skeptical of the narratives being pushed by Hollywood, the media, and the liberal establishment.

Meanwhile, the Black Lives Matter movement, claiming to champion racial equality, was accompanied by widespread looting and destruction. Young people watched as businesses were ravaged in the name of “equity” and “social justice,” weakening the movement’s appeal — a movement deeply intertwined with the Democrat Party.

The glaring double standard – enforcing strict COVID-19 restrictions on graduations and religious gatherings while actively encouraging mass protests – fueled a sense of outrage. The rules were being weaponized to advance certain political interests. While more entrenched partisan liberals may have stuck to their prior convictions, this hypocrisy clearly led to a backlash among younger Americans.

Beyond the pandemic, Gen Z has been subjected to the full-throated sermon of leftist ideology in schools, including assertions that America is inherently racist, or that gender is a social construct, and that the planet is doomed unless we drive electric cars, eat bugs, and live packed together in high-density housing.

Initially, the subtle nature of the left’s education indoctrination campaign won over plenty of converts among millennials and older zoomers. But as the propaganda became more blatant and extreme, it now seems to be having the opposite effect on some young people, who are rejecting it and turning to the conservative values of their grandparents’ generation.

A growing number of students also feel that schools have failed to equip them with essential life skills, and the promise of a college degree as a guaranteed path to success rings increasingly hollow as many graduates struggle to find meaningful employment. Left-wing protests and “campus takeovers” by pro-Hamas radicals have only further reinforced the notion that educational institutions primarily exist to advance a liberal political agenda.

Gen Z also became politically aware during the peak leftism of the Biden years. Their first opportunity to vote came after watching the media and Democrat establishment lie to their faces for four years about Biden’s obvious cognitive decline, all while shoving a left-wing agenda down their throats.

As the first true digital natives, the younger zoomers learned to navigate an information ecosystem radically different from previous generations. Having grown up in an era of fake news, deep fakes, and general media oversaturation, they place a high premium on authenticity, with podcasts and alternative media sources increasingly taking on the role of traditional news outlets. Republicans have proven more adept in this information marketplace, with appearances on popular podcasts reaching young voters more effectively than establishment media.

Conservatism appeals to Gen Z’s desire for freedom and opportunity, with young people finding solace in traditional values, as opposed to the left’s divisive identity politics and empty utopian promises.

All of these factors – the pandemic, chaos and violence in the streets, left-wing ideology in schools, and the radical excesses of the Biden years – left younger zoomers disillusioned and searching for lasting alternatives.

This prompted a resurgence of interest in conservative lifestyle practices, including homesteading, homeschooling, and the “trad wife” trend – a movement that reclaims traditional gender roles. These practices offer a path toward self-reliance and independence, allowing individuals to reclaim control over their lives and build strong, localized communities that are resistant to government overreach and social engineering. The focus is not on external, material goods, but rather on what you can create internally: family, a safe home, and community.

The rising popularity of traditional conservative lifestyles is increasingly showing up in the media as well. A recent Newsweek article highlighted that Gen Z is more pro-marriage than their parents, suggesting a yearning for stability and commitment in a world that lacks both.

Their yearning is also fueling a powerful resurgence of faith among young people. The New York Post reports that young adults are converting to Catholicism “en masse,” drawn to the Church’s emphasis on timeless truths, a trend that reflects a broader rejection of secularism.

While the left offers a narrative of perpetual grievance, conservatives present a more optimistic vision for the future that is defined by individual potential, not collective guilt. By rejecting the politics of victimhood and focusing on creating real economic and social mobility, conservatives offer Gen Z a path to genuine empowerment and self-determination.

Sarah Katherine Sisk is a senior at Hillsdale College pursuing a degree in Economics and Journalism. You can follow her on X @SKSisk76.