[This piece has been published in Restoring America to highlight how the two youngest generations are more ideologically stable and centrist than previously thought and what this might mean for the country’s political unity.]
Folk wisdom often attributed to public figures like Winston Churchill has long proclaimed that citizens become more politically conservative with age. The problem with folk wisdom is that it is often incorrect, as are many impressions about the political world today thanks to many thinking that media sites like Twitter are representative of reality when they are simply not.
Survey data newly compiled by the Survey Center on America Life powerfully shows that Gen Zers and millennials — the nation’s youngest two generations who happen to comprise more than half of all the polity — not only reveals real ideological stability but also contradicts prominent narratives that these younger cohorts are extremely left of center; they are quite centrist with significant numbers on both the left and right.
Looking at Gen Z — the youngest of all generations and those Americans who are today between ages 10 and 25 — what should shock those on the Left is that almost a quarter identify as conservative. And while the number has fluctuated a handful of points between 2015 and 2021, the fact is that a significant number of Gen Zers are anything but on the progressive Left. Now it is true that there are more members of Gen Z on the Left — roughly a third — but the overwhelming plurality sits in the middle with four in 10 describing themselves as moderate. Those who have come of age in an era of polarization and government dysfunction during the Obama and Trump presidencies are divided ideologically and not exclusively on the Left whatsoever.
Turning to the older millennials — those out of their collegiate years and in their mid-20s through their early 40s — two decades of data on their ideological preferences show remarkable consistency and centrism. Nearly 40% of millennials report that they are moderate and this figure has stayed consistent over the last 20 years. The same stability is evident among those who are ideological — about 30% of millennials identify as conservative or very conservative and almost 30% sit on the left side of the ideological spectrum. Put somewhat differently, in 2021, 27% of millennials were conservative and 30% were liberal. This is collectively zero change in 22 years where 26% of millennials were conservative and 29% were liberal way back in 1999.
These two decades of data strongly contradict the all-too-common claims that younger generations are monolithically left-of-center and that there is significant ideological change over time. While we only have data for those in Gen Z that stretches across six years, we have a long-term trend of data on millennials and the picture is very similar. Millennials have lived through intense global, socio-economic, and political change. They have witnessed economic and housing booms and busts along with changes in American global stature. Not to mention significant swings in rhetoric, political priorities, and governing ideas and approaches coming from the White House to state and local leaders and governments as well. Despite watching the Twin Towers fall on 9/11 and many coming of age during the Bush administration’s “war on terror” and then supporting Barack Obama’s pledges of unity and social cohesion, millennials did not generally shift their ideological preferences en masse. Very little movement has happened as millennials went from being young adults to parents, members of the workforce, and homeowners themselves.
It is the case that over the past few election cycles, millennials and Gen Z have generally supported particular presidential candidates over others, such as Biden over Trump. But in the case of the 2020 election, so much of that support for Biden has eroded; the election itself should not be taken as an indicator that these Americans are liberal whatsoever. Millennials and Gen Zers mobilized against Trump and not because they liked Biden.
As politicos and parties focus on the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election, neither major party should take these younger generations for granted. Those in Gen Z and millennials are fairly centrist with large chunks consistently being liberal and others conservative; they are not and have not shifted over time. Thus, parties should be focused on creating platforms that are fairly centrist and broadly appealing along with finding political personae who have appeal beyond liberal or conservative bases. Projections show that by 2030, millennials and their juniors in Gen Z will be so numerous that they may make up more than half of all eligible voters.
To succeed electorally, the practice of politics will have to change from courting extreme bases to a more centrist approach. Broadly appealing platforms are what will win the hearts and minds of younger cohorts and whichever party executes on this will thrive as Churchill was wrong, ideology does not always shift with age.
This article originally appeared in the AEIdeas blog and is reprinted with kind permission from the American Enterprise Institute.
