First Millennial on Major Presidential Ticket Could Shift More Young Men to the Right

MILWAUKEE — Senator Vance, the first millennial to run on a major party’s presidential ticket, could help accelerate the rapid shift to the right among young men in recent years, especially given his populist bona fides in an America that is increasingly unaffordable for younger generations. On Monday, in the hours following the announcement that Mr. Vance would be President Trump’s running mate, young men inside the Republican National Convention hall were ecstatic. Three younger men were seen on the convention hall floor looking at their phones and high-fiving shortly after news began to spread that Mr. Vance could be on the ticket. Later in the day, as Mr. Vance was leaving an interview with Sean Hannity in the Fox News convention booth, a throng of young men in MAGA hats and wearing pro-Trump pins held up their phones and chanted the first initials of the senator’s name, J.D.Young men of all races have been moving rightward in recent years, and President Biden’s numbers among those under the age of 40 has been especially dismal in some polls. Republicans see an opening with the 39-year-old senator potentially being the frontrunner for the 2028 Republican nomination. The policy director for the American Principles Project, a Washington-based think tank, Jon Schweppe, tells the Sun that younger voters will be “ecstatic” about the choice of Mr. Vance for vice president. “He’s going to add so much because Trump’s main message is that he wants to help the forgotten men and women of America. It’s a very populist message and Vance is a great messenger for that. Vance is somebody who I think really understands where the realignment of the GOP is,” Mr. Schweppe said in an interview. He argues that Mr. Vance’s pro-family message will resonate with those millennial and Generation Z voters who are increasingly unlikely to own a home, afford children, or to attain the kind of financial stability that their parents and grandparents were able to reach. The “realignment,” Mr. Schweppe says, will be toward those most affected by the despair of joblessness and addiction due to withering economic prospects, and away from the Republicans’ past “focus” on gross domestic product and the stock market. Mr. Vance has proposed an expanded child tax credit, stronger union worker protections, and a more protectionist trade policy in order to shield heartland families and employees. At one point, the senator went so far as to say that parents should be granted extra votes in federal elections based on the number of children they have, because they have a greater stake in the future of the country. “To have somebody who is a populist, who is also socially conservative, but somebody who wants to see the party become more appealing to working-class folks, to have a multiracial working-class majority … I think Vance is the perfect pick,” Mr. Schweppe, who describes his organization as the “NRA for families,” says. Mr. Schweppe argues that young men who have seen their economic prospects diminish in recent years — white, Black, Hispanic, Asian — will be attracted to Mr. Vance’s anti-corporate, pro-family messaging that could serve as a contrast to Mr. Biden. According to recent polling from multiple outlets, men under the age of 30 have moved markedly toward the GOP on key issues from government spending to immigration to culture.The spring 2024 edition of the Harvard Youth poll found that Mr. Biden’s handling of key issues has turned young men away from describing themselves as liberal and from joining the Democratic Party. Thirty-two percent of men under 30 approve of Mr. Biden’s job performance, while 64 percent disapprove. Thirty-two percent identified themselves as Democrats, while 29 percent said they were registered Republicans. That’s a drastic change from four years ago. In 2020, Democrats had a 22 percent advantage in registrations for men under the age of 30 compared to a three-point advantage today. Over that same time period, Democrats increased their registration by 6 percent among women of the same age cohort. Men under 30 have also gone from describing themselves as more liberal in 2020 to much more conservative today. In describing their own political ideology as either “conservative” or “liberal,” a majority of young men four years ago said they were the latter, while in 2024, a majority now say they self-identify as conservative.

First Millennial on Major Presidential Ticket Could Shift More Young Men to the Right

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