In Democratic circles, a new doom narrative has emerged: Young Americans, especially white men, are being red-pilled into racial animosity, jeopardizing years of racial progress and Democratic gains among young people. Strategists are scrambling to find a “Joe Rogan of the left” to forestall this disaster, as well as holding awkward livestreams about “Connecting With Young Men.”
But this past Tuesday, we saw Gen Z vote overwhelmingly for Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City, as well as for other Democrats, such as Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. These Gen Z landslides for Democrats may have been a surprise to some, but not for us. Well before the election, the data was already telling a different—and far more hopeful—story about the politics of Gen Z. In surveys from over 60,000 Americans in the 2024 Cooperative Election Study, the gold standard for political research, a clear pattern emerges: Racial resentment is collapsing among young people.
Political scientists use the term “racial resentment” to measure a specific set of attitudes about race. It’s not about a belief in biological inferiority, which is a feature of old-fashioned racism. Instead, it’s a worldview that attributes racial inequality to the perceived cultural failings of minority groups rather than to systemic barriers or discrimination. The survey asks respondents to agree or disagree with statements like: “Irish, Italian, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Black Americans should do the same without any special favors.” High racial resentment means believing racial disparities stem from lack of effort; low racial resentment means recognizing structural obstacles. Racial resentment has been mostly studied among white Americans, but it’s also very important for understanding the politics of Asians and Latinos. When Trump increased his support among Asians and Latinos, he did so by attracting those with higher levels of racial resentment.
Does scoring high on the racial resentment scale mean you’re a racist? Scholars differ on this question, and it’s outside of the scope of our analysis. What is most important for our purposes here is that your level of racial resentment predicts how you vote. In predicting who votes for or against Trump, racial resentment is one of the most powerful variables out there—more predictive than income, gender, education, geography, or attitudes about economic policy, gender, or religious traditionalism. In short, scoring high on racial resentment means you’re virtually certain to vote for Trump, whereas scoring low means you’re basically certain to vote against him. And among young Americans, racial resentment is at historic lows.
And here’s what the data shows: Gen Z has the lowest racial resentment of any generation ever studied.
This finding demolishes a central assumption of contemporary political analysis. Those young working-class whites, as well as young Latino and Asian men, that everyone assumes are driving reactionary politics? They’re more progressive on race than boomers, Gen X, and even college-educated elder millennials. Many commentators have highlighted “educational polarization,” the growing gap between college and non-college voters on partisanship and attitudes about race and culture. But the generational gap completely overwhelms this education divide that supposedly defines modern American politics.
The progressive shift appears across every demographic slice you can imagine. Young men and women are moving together, becoming less racially resentful over time. The pattern holds across regions, religions, and urban-rural divides. Despite endless discourse about young men being “lost to the manosphere,” the data shows them progressing alongside their female peers.
Gen Z men are unique in one way: They just can’t seem to catch a break in our political discourse. Republicans spent years attacking them as “woke” snowflakes who needed safe spaces. Now Democrats dismiss them as “red-pilled” misogynists. Both narratives are wrong. They’re simply more progressive on race than their fathers and grandfathers, continuing a pattern that has held for generations.
Young Republicans remain nearly as racially resentful as older Republicans. But among Democrats and independents, we see massive shifts. Young independents now look more like Democrats than like older independents, or Republicans, for that matter.
The Republican Party maintains its base through consistent racial attitudes across generations, but that base is shrinking. Meanwhile, everyone else is moving left on race. The center isn’t drifting right; young people are redefining where the center sits.
So what does this mean for Democratic strategy? All those debates about choosing between “identity politics” and economic populism? They’re based on a false premise when it comes to young voters. Young working-class voters with low racial resentment don’t choose between Medicare for All and Black Lives Matter. They’re ready for both.
As we’ve written before, we don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all optimal messaging and policy strategy for Democrats. We don’t think that Democratic candidates should march in lockstep to the left on all issues of racial politics, and a platform of symbolic identity politics without a strong economic vision is probably the worst of all worlds. But our findings show that a Democratic Party that defensively retreats on racial justice—especially backtracking on commitments to racial justice that Democratic leaders have already made—isn’t making a hard strategic choice. Instead, it’s awkwardly alienating its future base to chase voters who are literally dying off. Republicans’ Southern Strategy delivered temporary victories by activating racial resentment, but that strategy is approaching its expiration date.
Remember, as well, that Gen Z is close to majority-minority. Combine progressive young whites with growing electoral power among young voters of color, whose racial resentment is also historically low, and the math becomes undeniable. Racial justice isn’t a luxury Democrats can jettison—it’s the foundation of any stable future majority coalition.
Why does conventional wisdom get this so wrong?
First, we confuse normal electoral swings with deep attitude changes. When Democrats perform a few points worse with young voters in one election (18- to 29-year-olds shifted about six percentage points toward Trump from 2020 to 2024), suddenly Gen Z becomes “the most conservative generation that we’ve experienced maybe in 50 to 60 years.” This misconception happens in part because most young people don’t vote—only about 42 percent of Gen Z voted in 2024—so any given election could generate a vastly different young electorate even if everyone’s attitudes remain fixed. We mistake turnout fluctuations for ideological transformation.
Second, the loudest voices aren’t the most representative. Every generation has its extremists, but social media amplifies today’s fringe movements well beyond their actual size and salience. A handful of young white nationalists can create viral moments that receive more coverage than surveys of thousands showing generational progress. We mistake the exception for the rule.
Third, there’s motivated reasoning everywhere. Conservatives want to believe they’re winning the youth. Centrist Democrats want to believe the party needs to move right. Pessimistic progressives want to believe we’re doomed. Political consultants want a reason to sell their clients on new, expensive advertising markets. Everyone finds anecdotes that confirm their assumptions while ignoring mountains of contradictory data.
None of this means racism is solved or progress is guaranteed. Racial resentment hasn’t disappeared (nor has racism in its most violent manifestations)—it’s just much lower among younger cohorts. Electoral outcomes can still diverge from underlying attitudes, especially in the U.S. system that prioritizes small groups of voters in pivotal swing states and districts, accentuated with voter suppression and gerrymandering. Political leaders can work to inflame racial divisions if they choose.
But the generational trajectory is unmistakable. Each generation is less racially resentful than the one before. That includes Gen Z.
The story of Gen Z isn’t one of racist backlash or “red-pilled” young men. It’s the story of the most racially progressive generation in American history. Democrats who think they need to retreat on racial justice aren’t being hard-headed realists—they’re fighting the last war while the terrain has fundamentally shifted beneath their feet.
The kids are alright. The real problem might be older generations projecting their own racial anxieties onto them. Instead of treating Gen Z as a lost cause, it’s time to heed what their significantly lower racial resentment signals: They’re moving forward. The question is whether we’ll follow.
