Poll: Women drive big advantage for Harris among young voters, with men divided
Harris has a significant lead among young registered voters in the NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z Poll powered by SurveyMonkey. But a yawning gender gap is dividing Gen Z.
Trussler and Mara Haeger
Half of registered voters under 30 years old plan to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and one-third are lining up with former President Donald Trump — relatively unchanged from a previous survey in August, according to the new NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z Poll,
And among young voters who say they will vote in the presidential election in November, Harris leads 56%-36%, a 20-point advantage. With some young voters leaning toward other candidates on the ballot besides Harris and Trump, that’s just shy of the 24-point margin President Joe Biden enjoyed among voters under 30 in 2020 (60%-36%), according to the NBC News exit poll.
Within Gen Z, though, there are notable splits between different groups — and the gender gap is particularly significant.
Young women said they’ll vote for Harris over Trump by a 33-point margin. Young men were essentially even, with Harris having a 2-point lead.
Men (46%) were more likely to say that Trump has the right temperament to serve as president compared with women (30%). Mirroring this, women (65%) were more likely to say that Harris has the right temperament compared with men (55%).
The gender differences splashed across the issues young voters say are most important to their vote. While inflation and the cost of living ranked as the most important issue among both men (35%) and women (29%), they differed on what came next, with 13% of women selecting abortion compared with 4% of men. Among men, 13% cited threats to democracy as their most important issue, compared with 9% of women who picked that issue.
There were also large gender differences on the role abortion policy will play in choosing a candidate. Just under half of young women (48%) said that they would only vote for a candidate who shared their view on abortion, compared with 36% of men.
