Gen Z Americans were a key part of President Trump's winning coalition in 2024. Nearly two years later — and with early voting underway in multiple states for the midterms — some of that youth support has faded. That sentiment was on display in a focus group, conducted last week, of eight Generation Z Trump voters, who reported varying degrees of unhappiness and disappointment over the state of politics, with some going as far as to say they regret supporting Trump in 2024.
The conversation was conducted virtually by Navigator Research, a left-leaning polling group. Participants ranged in age from 20 to 29 and spanned five states: Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Texas and South Carolina — places Trump won by double digits in the last election. Two of those states, Texas and Ohio, are home to competitive races that could be key to control of the Senate.
For participants who now regret their vote for Trump, much of their frustration centers on what they see as a string of failed promises. When asked to give the president's job performance a letter grade, a majority of participants, 6 out of 8, assigned him a grade of either D or F, while two selected C. "I just feel like nothing went correctly.
I just feel like everything got worse," said John, a 29-year-old Black man from Florida. (Participants agreed to be part of the focus group on the condition that they be identified by only their first names.) John, who identifies as a Republican and has voted for Trump since 2016, gave the president an F and said he now plans to support Democratic candidates this fall, in large part because of the strain he has felt from rising costs. "I'm willing to give the other side a chance," he added. "I don't think they're going to make a total change.
But things are just horrible right now for me. So I feel like even if they make one or two small changes, it will probably benefit me." Though the focus group is not a nationally representative survey, the frustrations shared by participants echoed Navigator polling released in August, which found that nearly a third of Gen Zers — those under age 30 — regret voting for Trump, higher than older generations do. Trump's rising unpopularity among young voters isn't in a vacuum.
He has also lost ground with other key groups that shifted right in 2024, notably independents and Latino voters — and in a year when the Republican Party is facing political headwinds, it's unclear whether that expanded coalition from two years ago can show up at the same strength now. While some voters, like John in Florida, do feel compelled to vote blue this cycle in response to Trump, 4 of the 8 who took part in the focus group said they still planned to back Republicans this year. Three said they'd vote for Democrats; one participant said she was still deciding.
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