Following President Joe Biden’s sudden exit from the 2024 race, many Democrat pollsters and consultants are likely hoping that the party can recover lost ground with young people under the leadership of a younger candidate, very likely the 59-year-old Kamala Harris. However, polling data and societal trends in recent years suggest that Biden’s struggles with young people are not unique to him, but are instead just one manifestation of a brewing rejection of left-wing ideology among many American youth – particularly young men.
In 2020, voters aged 18-29 made up roughly 17 percent of the electorate, and Biden won that group by 20 points. He also won voters under 45 by double digits.
But over the past four years, Biden has hemorrhaged support among young people. Before the president dropped out of the race, Trump had dramatically narrowed Biden’s lead among young voters, and some polls even had him winning the demographic. Biden’s collapsing support among this crucial Democrat voting bloc, in particular after his disastrous debate performance, likely played a role in forcing him out of the race.
But simply replacing Biden with Harris might not be enough for Democrats to win back these disaffected voters. According to a CNN poll out earlier this week, Harris only leads Trump 47-43 among voters aged 18-34 – far less than Biden’s margin four years ago and an ominous sign for a Harris campaign that urgently needs to make up more ground with that group. These early indications suggest that young people may not be fed up so much with Biden and Harris specifically, but with the left-wing ideology of the modern Democrat Party more broadly.
This trend appears to be primarily driven by young men – and is beginning even before many can vote. A 2022 University of Michigan survey found that high school senior boys are now twice as likely to identify as conservative as liberal. In total, 23 percent now say they are conservative, while just 13 percent say they are liberal – a significant shift from 2010, when 21 percent identified as liberal and 20 percent identified as conservative.
Among high school senior girls, meanwhile, 30 percent identify as liberal, while just 12 percent call themselves conservative.
Harvard’s Institute of Politics has noted this gender gap as well. A national poll they conducted earlier this year found that Biden was leading with 18-29-year-old women by 33 points, while his lead was just six points with men in that age range.
The international research agency Glocalities finds that this is not a phenomenon unique to the United States. According to their analysis of polls from 20 countries, while young women have become on average more liberal over the past decade, young men have become more conservative. Moreover, this gap appears to be widening.
Glocalities, a left-wing organization, is decidedly worried about this trend, describing conservatism as “the stagnation of progress toward liberal values” and warning that the “radical right” is gaining ground with young men. The report also describes a preference for traditional marriage over gay unions as a “patriarchal value” and attributes increasingly conservative attitudes to feelings of “despair.”
However, as French sociologist and historian Dr. Pascal Pierre Pageu told me, “Even this biased analysis cannot hide that increasingly young men reject leftism and desire the opposite.”
But what is it exactly that is causing young men to lean rightward?
One major factor could be glimmers of hope for a resurgence in Christianity. According to the 2024 “State of the Bible” study, Gen-Z Christians are becoming increasingly committed to studying the Bible. 55 percent of respondents said the Bible’s message was “transforming their lives,” and indicated that they were finding purpose, good character, and happiness in their studies.
Retired professor Johann Dingfelder, who is Catholic and until recently regularly visited the United States, added that the poll indicated a sign of upcoming moral renewal in America. “I do not doubt this survey’s integrity, so it is evident the change is on the horizon,” he said.
He also pointed out that conservatism is offering young men things which they crave but which leftism now rejects – purpose, hope, and moral courage. While the left tells young men that their masculinity is “toxic” and that their innate desire to lead is “problematic,” the right embraces these virtues as fundamental building blocks of a healthy society.
As Professor Dingfeder put it, young men are beginning to understand “that the left is denying them absolute, universal values by which to judge their own life, society, and the government… they are told that ‘human rights’ come from government and not God, and that there is no moral foundation for the dignity and value of the individual person.”
As Dr. Pascal further explained, the left’s demonization of strong male role models as “far right” or, worse, “pro-Trump,” has naturally led many young men to find an ideological home in the America First movement and the Republican Party.
While the American left hopes that changing the face at the top of a presidential ticket will help the Democrat Party gain lost ground with young men, they appear to still fail to understand that the problem is one of ideology, not a particular political leader. And as more young men continue to embrace conservatism as an ideology of hope, purpose, and solid moral foundation, young women, too, may begin making the same shift.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
