The Spring 2025 Yale Youth Poll, released Tuesday, indicates that a growing number of college-aged Americans are now leaning toward the Republican Party over the Democratic Party. The student-led survey found that when asked which candidate they would support in the 2026 congressional elections in their district, voters aged 18 to 21 favored the Republican candidate by an 11.7-percentage-point margin, while those aged 22 to 29 leaned toward the Democratic candidate by a 6.4-point margin.
While the survey revealed a Republican tilt among young voters, many respondents under 30 expressed unfavorable views toward both President Donald Trump and key figures in the Democratic Party. Among this group, Trump’s net favorability rating was -17.9, while Kamala Harris’s rating stood at -1. In contrast, former President Joe Biden fared even worse with a net favorability score of -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.”
A Yale Youth Poll released in October 2024 revealed that, prior to the November 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris held a 21-point advantage over President Trump among young voters. Since then, the Democratic Party has reportedly struggled to craft clear messaging and connect with working-class voters following their 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.” Recent polls indicate that Democrats are confronting historically low approval ratings among voters. The party is also bracing for multiple retirements ahead of the 2026 midterms, including those of Sen. Gary Peters (MI), Sen. Tina Smith (MN), and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (NH).
Additionally, there was a notable shift among young voters during the 2024 presidential cycle. According to AP VoteCast, over half of male voters under 30 supported Trump in the November 2024 election—a marked change from 2020, when a similar proportion backed Biden. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump actively targeted young male voters, notably making appearances on popular podcasts such as “The Joe Rogan Experience” and “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von” at the direction of his son, Barron Trump.