CV NEWS FEED // New polling data highlights a surprising shift in political alignments, while older voters increasingly disapprove of President Donald Trump and younger Americans swing right.
A RealClear Opinion Research poll conducted April 10-12 found that voters aged 70 and older disapproved of Trump’s performance by a 14-point margin, the worst of any age group. Meanwhile, voters aged 18-29 gave Trump a 2-point approval lead, and those 30-39 backed him by 9 points.
THERE IT IS. You ever wonder why all these anti-DOGE, anti-Musk, anti-Trump protests are senior citizens?
Trump approval…
Gen Z: +2
70+: -14 pic.twitter.com/yIkHs2xolF
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 22, 2025
The reversal marks a break from longstanding trends.
In the 2008, 2012, and 2020 elections, Democrats carried the under-30 vote by margins of 60% or more, according to NPR polling.
Similarly, a recent Yale Youth Poll of 4,100 voters found that Americans aged 18-21 now lean Republican by nearly 12 points in their 2026 Congressional preferences. Still, voters aged 22-29 leaned Democrat by just over 6 points.
Some analysts suggest the change is driven by COVID-era policies.
A Bloomberg report noted that extended shutdowns “forced younger voters to spend formative teenage years at home, depriving them of experiences critical for social development and emotional flourishing.”
“Turns out, they weren’t too happy about it,” the report concluded, adding that younger voters “gravitated to the GOP, the political party that ultimately opposed pandemic lockdowns and belittled precautions like vaccines and masks.”
Political consultant Rachel Janfaza echoed the sentiment, writing that the youngest voters are “leaning further to the right, in large part because they are distrustful of institutions and authority.”
Democratic pollster Margi Omero, on the other hand, speculated that the findings may be an outlier.
“It’s far more likely that this new poll is an outlier than there has been a massive swing with this specific group,” Omero told Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, other polling data continues to find a stark ideological divide between the sexes, with young men voting far more conservative than young women.
As CatholicVote reported last month, “18-year-old men were 23% more likely to support President Donald Trump than women their age – a dramatic gender gap drawing attention from both parties.”
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