Disenfranchised, Disillusioned, and Divided: Inside Gen Z’s gendered political divide
May 20th, 2026 

Among Generation Z, a political divide is splitting the sexes. As young women shift to the left and young men stride to the right, America’s youngest voting bloc continues to fracture across gendered lines. 

 

2024’s election shocked the nation with a resounding victory for President Donald Trump, with Republicans gaining significant ground in key demographics. One major shift: the men of Gen Z flipped from 59% for Biden in 2020 to 56% for Trump in 2024, according to NPR. 

 

The resulting gender divide was stark–a 31-point gap between young women (+17 Harris) and men (+14 Trump), according to CIRCLE. NBC News reports that the partisan gender gap is wider among Gen Z than in any other generation. 

 

On college campuses, the chasm isn't just a statistic.

 

With political tensions rising, testimonials from young political leaders at the University of Iowa and in Iowa City offer insight into why the shifts are happening and how they are affecting student life.

 

Young men feel spurned by the left

 

The Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative youth activism organization, has an active chapter at the University of Iowa. The group’s newly elected president, sophomore Brody Baker, says the gender gap is the result of a wide range of factors, including the Democratic party’s rhetoric.

 

“The messaging is the biggest thing,” Baker says. “What young men are being told is that they're toxic. Toxic masculinity was the big focus for five or six years, with the MeToo movement in the United States. Young men are told, ‘because you're a young man–a white conservative young man–you have no opinion on a certain matter.’”

 

Junior Kasey Ludlow, the newly elected president of UI’s Bridge chapter, echoed similar sentiments. Bridge is Iowa’s bipartisan student organization that focuses on “bridging political polarization one conversation at a time.” 

 

“I think there's a growing feeling among young men that liberalism or Democrats don't represent them,” says Ludlow. “And I think it's okay for people to not understand every single demographic and group, but don't lie to our face. And then a lot of people feel like the MeToo stuff and cancel culture went too far.”

 

The #MeToo movement, a social movement against sexual assault and harassment, began in 2017. Over time, the movement has become divisive along party lines, with a 2022 Pew Research study finding that Republican men familiar with the movement are twice as likely to oppose it as they are to support it.

 

The increased attention on women’s issues and rights eventually prompted a notion that men’s voices were being ousted. The conservative movement was ready to welcome them with open arms.

 

Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk and new CEO of conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, emphasized the point while speaking to an Arkansas TPUSA chapter in March, saying, “Don’t let anyone disenfranchise you because you’re a young man, especially a young white male man. Don’t ever let anyone talk down to you.” 

 

Baker repeats the term and echoes the sentiment, saying, “[The Republican Party] is listening. They're understanding that [young men] were told in the [Democratic] party to shut up and be quiet. The conservative movement understands that they are being disenfranchised.”

 

Estella Ruhrer-Johnson, 2025 UI graduate and president of the College and Young Democrats of Iowa, sees similar trends on the right but disagrees that the solution is to recenter men’s voices on the left.

 

“Men are being centered within conservative ideology. Democrats, on the contrary, in my experience, have attempted to unify under ideologies and shared values, [rather than] a gender dynamic,” Ruhrer-Johnson explains.

 

Junior political science student Grace Nelson argues the point further, saying that with all the focus on young men’s exodus from the left, their needs and voices are only being amplified.

 

“The focus is more on men and trying to dissuade them from conservatism,” Nelson says. “Women are kind of ignored and seen as an automatic stronghold for Democrats, which means our needs aren't necessarily being catered to because it's just assumed that we'll always be there, like the benchwarmers of the Democratic Party.”

 

“That’s why so many young people just feel so disillusioned with politics,” Nelson continues. “There's just this assumption that young people or women or minorities will always turn out for the Democratic Party, and then we're getting nothing in return. The focus is, as it always has been, on these men who don't do anything.”

 

Young men may feel unheard on the left, but after the 2024 election, it seems that all eyes are on them.

 

Young women reject “tradition” from the right

 

Just as young men feel disrespected by the left, many young women feel restricted by the right. 

 

Ruhrer-Johnson says the traditional gender roles promoted by conservative leaders push young women to the left. 

 

“When you see faith-based religious and conservative speakers claim that they need to be the head of the household, they need to make the decisions, it’s a very patriarchal stance to politics that's really unattractive to young women.” 

 

These traditionalist views on gender pop up often among prominent conservative commentators like Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and Matt Walsh. Each is religious with overwhelmingly male audiences; each has argued that men and women are significantly different, biologically, and should be treated as such.

 

This divide can be seen in the statistics: men are more likely than women to say differences between the two genders are mostly based on biology, while women tend to point to societal expectations as the reason, according to a Pew Research survey. Partisan gaps are even wider.

 

These competing understandings of gender differences also shape competing views on how women should behave.

 

Baker notes a similar point when describing how the left continues to attract young women.

 

“I think right now it's the perception that the Democratic Party is kind of envisioning for [young women] to be kind of their own person, whereas the conservative movement is talking about the family unit, which is bringing everyone together,” Baker says. “[Women] are kind of told that it's all about them in a way where, you know, whatever they want, they can get, they can find.”

 

That growing sense that women are defining themselves beyond the family unit points to another core issue in the left’s pull on women–the right to have an abortion.

 

Here, the gender gap is particularly stark, with 61% of women identifying as pro-choice, compared with 41% of men, according to a 2025 Gallup poll. For young women, abortion ranked as the most important issue heading into the 2024 election, according to a poll by KFF.

 

Ruhrer-Johnson and Ludlow both highlighted the issue of abortion when it comes to the left’s pull with young women.

 

“I would say the biggest attraction for women to liberalism would be bodily autonomy, which is just essentially the right to abortion, the right to self-governing, the right to birth control,” says Ruhrer-Johnson. “You see liberals pushing legislation that would advance childcare, opportunities to education, first generation scholarships.”

 

Ludlow agrees.

 

“If you believe that abortion is a human right, then you're going to go with the side that's saying abortion is a human right because you feel represented in that space,” says Ludlow. “I think for women, the social aspect of politics plays a little bit of a larger role than it does for men.”

 

With an unpopular pro-life position and a commitment to traditional gender roles, the right may continue to push young women away into the open arms of the Democratic party.

 

As each party chases passionate young people away, the resulting political divide seems increasingly insurmountable.

 

Gen Z is cutting ties along party lines

 

According to a Skeptic Research Center study, Gen Z is more likely to sever ties with friends over politics than any other age group. In the polarized 2024 election, students like Ludlow felt the effects.

 

“In the ‘24 election, I ended up voting for Trump. It wasn't a decision that I was necessarily happy to make. I had some friends who came to me the day after the election, like, ‘Who did you vote for?’ And I told them I voted for Trump, and then they just turned their ears off and said, ‘I don't want to be friends with you,’” Ludlow recalls. “I ended up not talking to them for like six months, and then eventually they came back and apologized, which I'm grateful for.”

 

Across age groups, liberals were “substantially and consistently” more likely to cut ties than their conservative counterparts, according to the same Skeptic Research Center study.

 

Ruhrer-Johnson emphasizes her tolerance for those with differently labeled views, but says there are lines she has to draw.

 

“I've said since I got into politics that I will always work or be friends with someone of different political ideology as long as we're advancing the same goal… Iowa’s water quality is terrible. If [Young Americans for Freedom] wants to host a panel with local legislators questioning the water quality and what we're going to do about it, I would applaud that,” she says.

 

“I am more than willing to have conversations and let people into my life, but I also have to protect myself,” she continues. “As a gay American, there are certain legislations and political ideologies that adamantly stand against my existence. And how can I exist while someone else in my life actively votes against my well-being?”

 

For Baker, politics don’t belong in relationships or friendships at all.

 

“To me, it's based on the relationship as a whole. What I see in my future is ‘Are you willing to be a good partner to me, for our kids?’” Baker says. “[In friendships], it's ‘Are you a good person? Are you a good friend to me?’ You never should have politics on that front.”

 

For Nelson, avoiding politics is a red flag.

 

“My friends are all very politically active and engaged. I want to surround myself with people who are not only holding my similar political views, but acting on them and being engaged,” Nelson says. “I don't really have a tolerance for being apolitical or centrist.”

 

A path forward is needed—but unclear

 

The causes of the rift may be up for debate, but everyone agrees that it’s having an impact.

 

Ruhrer-Johnson and Baker represent two polar opposite platforms and ideologies, but both acknowledge the harm that polarization is causing across the country.

 

“I think that our country is like an open wound right now,” Ruhrer-Johnson says. “We are just bleeding. People that we used to call friends, we no longer associate with. Family members are being cut off… It's such a heartbreaking situation, truly.”

 

“I think, over time, time heals all wounds,” says Baker. “At least, I hope so. Let's see. But it takes action. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes a long time… A bridge isn't built in a day.”

 

Just the same, both sides point towards the other for change— and lament that they feel unheard.

 

“It takes both sides in a way,” says Baker. “It takes saying, ‘Hey, let's actually listen to young men for once’ from the Democratic Party. ‘Let's listen and understand.’ That’s why we see a political divide on campus–we're not listening.”

 

“At the end of the day, we're all Americans. We're all here. We all have to live with each other,” says Ruhrer-Johnson. “But this aggressive, far-right ideology is so overbearing–it's difficult to hear any other voice at the table.”

 

Nelson echoes the worries over making concessions.

 

“We kind of want other people to be the ones reaching across the aisle and bridging that gap, but we're not wanting to reach out or make that first step. Then it's like we're compromising our morals,” she says. “Right now, it feels like the divide is endless, and I don't really know if it's worth it, necessarily, to try to bridge that gap.”

 

Ludlow naturally believes in the power of conversation.

 

“The country is extremely polarized right now, but especially among young people…[At Bridge], we want to open people's minds and excite them to discuss this stuff. We can sit here and talk about abortion without screaming at each other.”

 

As America races toward another polarized and unpredictable election in November, Gen Z’s gendered divide shows no sign of narrowing.