Gen Z Is Ready to Vote. Will Democracy Meet Them There? by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., September 7, 2026

Gen Z Is Ready to Vote. Will Democracy Meet Them There?

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

September 7, 2026

Happy Labor Day, everybody and happy to share this encouraging recent piece in The Hill on Gen Z and the 2026 midterms. Gen Zers—or “Zoomers”—matter deeply to me because they, together with younger Millennials, are the young people I teach in college. I do not experience them primarily as a demographic category or a voting bloc. I know them as students: thoughtful, worried about their futures, impatient with hypocrisy, sometimes cynical about politics, but also remarkably attentive to the world around them.

Just behind them is Gen Alpha, today's children and younger teenagers, the oldest of whom are now in their mid-teens. They, too, are watching. They are coming of age amid financial insecurity, political polarization, climate anxiety, war, attacks on public education, rapidly changing technologies, and an affordability crisis that they already understand through their own families. They may not yet be old enough to vote, but they are hardly oblivious to what is going on.

All of this is why the new polling on Gen Z caught my attention.

The Hill article reports that 31 percent of Gen Z voters who supported Donald Trump in 2024 now say they regret that vote, a higher share than among older generations. Trump's approval among Gen Z stood at only 33 percent. 

But the finding I find more interesting is that 40 percent of Gen Z respondents describe politics as “very important” to their personal identity—the highest percentage of any generation surveyed (Feldstein et al., 2026; Smedley & Hamberg, 2026).

Navigator Research aptly titled its report Anything But Apathy. That strikes me as exactly right. Gen Z may be frustrated with politics, but frustration should not be confused with disengagement. These young adults appear to be watching closely, assessing what political leaders promised against what has actually happened, and making judgments accordingly.

Nor do they appear ready to give either political party their unconditional allegiance. Nor should they. This alliegance must be earned by those running for office.

Navigator found considerable dissatisfaction with Trump and pessimism about the economy, but that does not translate automatically into confidence in Democrats. Younger adults are disproportionately represented among what the researchers call “economic persuadables”—people unhappy with Trump's handling of the economy who nevertheless remain unconvinced that Democrats would do better (Smedley & Hamberg, 2026).

Again, I find something encouraging in this.

Young people ought to question what they inherit from us. They should notice when rhetoric and reality do not match. They should be free to change their minds about a candidate or a party without being accused of inconsistency. A vote cast at 18, 20, or 25 should not become a lifetime political identity simply because it was one's first choice.

There is such a thing as political learning.

It happens when experience complicates what we thought we knew. It happens when the consequences of policy show up in rent, grocery bills, tuition, wages, health care, or one's ability to imagine owning a home someday. And sometimes it happens when a voter looks at the person they supported and decides, This is not what I thought I was voting for.

There is another reason to pay attention to Gen Z in 2026. A survey cited by The Hill, conducted by URGE and HIT Strategies, found that 93 percent of the young people surveyed said they would “certainly” or “probably” vote in the midterm elections. Intentions do not always become votes, of course, and youth turnout has historically lagged behind that of older Americans. But nearly 49 million young people ages 18 to 29 will be eligible to vote this November. CIRCLE estimates that roughly 8.5 million of them have entered the electorate since the 2024 presidential election (Stetkiewicz & Searles, 2026).

That is a remarkable amount of potential political power.

Nearly half of these eligible young voters are young people of color, including approximately 10.8 million Latino youth and 6.6 million Black youth. For someone who has spent a career thinking about education, race, citizenship, and inequality, these numbers are difficult to regard as merely electoral statistics. They represent a generation increasingly capable of affecting who governs and, potentially, what government is expected to do.

This is where my optimism about Gen Z collides with something happening right now in Texas.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Tarrant County.

The significance of Tarrant County to this story lies in the convergence of population growth, demographic change, political competitiveness, and access to the ballot. More than two million people live there, and some 1.3 million are registered to vote. 

For decades, Tarrant County was considered reliably Republican. That description fits less comfortably today. Democratic candidates have made significant gains there, and Democrat Taylor Rehmet's striking special-election victory earlier this year in a state Senate district in northern Tarrant County only added to the sense that this once-predictable Republican stronghold has become genuinely competitive (Lenzen, 2026).

Against that backdrop, what happened on September 1 deserves attention well beyond North Texas.

By a 3–2 vote along party lines, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court approved an Election Day plan containing 224 polling sites. During the 2022 midterms, the county had 316. In other words, a growing county with 1.3 million registered voters will go into this November's election with 92 fewer Election Day polling locations—nearly a 30 percent reduction. Early-voting locations will decline as well, from 50 to 47 (Armas & Jenkins, 2026; Lenzen, 2026).

County Judge Tim O'Hare and Commissioners Matt Krause and Manny

Ramirez voted for the plan. Commissioners Alisa Simmons and Roderick Miles Jr. opposed it.

There are competing accounts of what these cuts mean, and it is important to represent them accurately. Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig has described the reductions in terms of efficiency, site availability, statutory requirements, and accessibility issues. O'Hare has argued that the county will still provide sufficient opportunities to vote and that the plan exceeds statutory requirements. Some poll workers have also pointed to historically lower turnout in midterm elections (Armas & Jenkins, 2026).

Opponents see something quite different. Voting-rights advocates, Democratic commissioners, students, and many residents have called the reductions voter suppression, warning that fewer voting locations will mean longer travel, greater inconvenience, confusion, and additional burdens that will not be experienced equally across the county.

And there is an obvious tension here that deserves to be stated plainly. CBS Texas reported that O'Hare himself said higher voter turnout is expected in the upcoming election (Armas & Jenkins, 2026).

So why would a county anticipating higher turnout provide nearly one-third fewer Election Day polling places than it did during the last midterm election?

That is not an accusation of hidden motive. It is a legitimate public-policy question.

The locations at issue also matter. The University of Texas at Arlington's Maverick Activity Center will no longer serve as an Election Day polling place, and efforts to restore voting sites at UTA and Tarrant County College campuses were defeated 3–2. Residents have also expressed concerns about the loss of sites serving Black and Brown neighborhoods.

This is where Tarrant County connects directly to the Gen Z story for me.

A university polling site is more than a dot on an election administrator's map. For a student who may be voting in their first election, the difference between walking across campus after class and figuring out transportation to an unfamiliar off-campus site can matter. So can a work shift, an evening seminar, childcare responsibilities, not owning a car, or simply not knowing the geography of a county where one recently moved to attend college.

None of these obstacles formally takes away a person's right to vote. That is precisely why voting access needs to be understood in more than formal terms. A right can remain intact on paper while becoming considerably more burdensome to exercise.

And those burdens do not fall evenly.

CIRCLE's research is especially relevant here (Stetkiewicz & Searles, 2026). Young voters without college experience already participate at lower rates than their college-going counterparts, and Black and Latino youth have historically voted at lower rates than white youth. Nearly half of the 2026 youth electorate consists of young people of color. 

Source: CIRCLE

The practical architecture of voting—where sites are placed, how easy they are to reach, how much information young voters receive—therefore has equity consequences.

The intensity of the public response in Tarrant County tells us that residents understand what is at stake. More than 100 people addressed the Commissioners Court before the September 1 vote, most of them opposing the cuts, and representatives of some 30 civic groups rallied outside the courthouse. The meeting lasted more than eight hours. After the vote, people in the audience chanted “shame” (Lenzen, 2026).

One voice I particularly hope people will hear is that of Tarrant County resident Laney Hawes, who joined Jacob Soboroff on MS NOW following the commissioners' decision. 

The title of the segment captures her urgency: “‘PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND’: Tarrant County voter after removal of 92 polling sites.” Hawes' larger point was that people outside Tarrant County should not assume this is someone else's problem (MS NOW, 2026).

I think she is right.

The issue before us is bigger than whether one agrees with the political choices Gen Z made in 2024—or which choices young voters make in 2026. Democracy is not meaningful only when citizens vote the way we hope they will.

For educators especially, there is an obligation here that I find difficult to escape. We spend years telling young people that their voices matter. We teach them about citizenship, civil rights, the Constitution, social movements, elections, and the responsibilities accompanying life in a democracy. We encourage them to become informed, question authority, debate ideas, participate in their communities, and vote.

When they decide to take us seriously, the answer cannot be to make participation harder.

That is what worries me about the juxtaposition between these two stories. On one side is a generation that may be becoming more politically engaged than many people realize. Young adults are reconsidering previous choices, questioning both political parties, worrying about affordability and their economic futures, and showing signs that they may turn out in significant numbers this November. 

On the other side, in one of the largest and most politically competitive counties in Texas, voters will find substantially fewer places to cast an Election Day ballot than they had four years ago.

Perhaps what we should be talking about is the troubling contradiction between urging young people to participate in democracy and simultaneously making that participation more difficult.

I remain hopeful about Gen Z—not because I expect young people to think as I do or vote as I might wish, but because I see questioning itself as a democratic virtue. They are watching us. They are watching what institutions do, not simply what leaders say. They are discovering that politics has consequences, and some are reconsidering assumptions formed only a few years ago.

Gen Alpha is watching, too.

What these generations eventually conclude about democracy will depend partly on what they see us doing with it.

If we tell them their voices matter, we should make sure there is a ballot box waiting when they arrive.

References

Armas, M., & Jenkins, S. E. (2026, September 1). Tarrant County commissioners vote to cut election polling sites, CBS Texas. https://www.channel3000.com/news/national-and-world-news/tarrant-county-commissioners-vote-to-cut-election-polling-sites/article_38d3ae73-e40c-5295-bb41-1ba1849f77ba.html

Feldstein, J., Leibowitz, C., & Walker, A. (2026, August 28). Gen Z regrets Trump support and is midterm motivated. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/6056216-gen-z-trump-voter-regret-midterm-clipping/

Lenzen, C. (2026, September 1). Tarrant County removes 92 polling sites ahead of November election, The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2026/09/01/tarrant-county-removes-polling-sites/

MS NOW. (2026, September 6). ‘PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND’: Tarrant County voter after removal of 92 polling sites [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=552dYGlCoEQ

Smedley, A., & Hamberg, T. (2026, August 25). Anything but apathy: Young Americans digest and dissect politics differently. Navigator Research. https://navigatorresearch.org/anything-but-apathy-young-americans-digest-and-dissect-politics-differently/

Stetkiewicz, S., & Searles, S. (2026, May 20). 49 million young people will be eligible to vote in the 2026 midterms. Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/49-million-young-people-will-be-eligible-vote-2026-midterms

Gen Z regrets Trump support and is midterm motivated

by Joshua Feldstein, Claire Leibowitz and Abigail Walker - 08/28/26 6:00 AM

Thirty-one percent of Generation Zers who voted for President Trump say they regret it, a recent Navigator poll reports.

Millennials followed at 28 percent, with 20 percent of Generation Xers and 10 percent of baby boomers saying they regret backing Trump, too. 

Continue reading here.

Newsom vetoes bill banning caste discrimination in California, by Lauren Sforza | The Hill

Legislation banning caste discrimination shouldn't surprise us and reflects the growing presence of South Asian Americans in the U.S. "South Asians" emanate from such nation states as India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. I learned recently from an Indian friend who lives in Austin that caste-based prejudice and discrimination often follows South Asians even after they've migrated to other countries despite efforts within their own to promote social equality. 

"It's very painful," she said. "People here will actually ask you what your caste is and this, of course, has implications for how you're seen, whether someone will marry you after they know about this." I could see and feel the pain in her expression and sensed her disappointment in how migration to the U.S. doesn't solve this, but rather, in her case, followed her family into the U.S. It saddened me to think that someone in the U.S. would even ask another that question to begin with. Yet like race, it's understandable that these ways of knowing reinforced by British colonialism and white supremacist ideologies die hard.

Caste-based prejudice and discrimination is clearly an existing social problem within these South Asian cultures that overlaps significantly with—even as it is distinct from—racial discrimination. For a comparison to the U.S., a powerful and provocative book on this is Isabel Wilkerson's (2020) book titled, Caste: The origins of our discontents, that considers how race, like caste, is a deeply ingrained notion that has shaped us as a country. 

Sociology and anthropology has long considered the extent to which our country mirrors more of a class-based society, or one more aptly characterized as one of caste—or in the words of the late Berkeley anthropologist, Dr. John Ogbu, as "caste-like"—inasmuch as a lack of social and economic mobility attaches to entire classes or categories of racial groups, historically.

Just like all forms of racial forms of discrimination, we should all similarly oppose discrimination by caste. Much to ponder here, particularly with the ascendancy of South Asian communities in the U.S.

-Angela Valenzuela

References

Ogbu, J. (1978). Minority Education and Caste: The American System in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Academic Press.

Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste: The origins of our discontents. Random House.

Newsom vetoes bill banning caste discrimination in California

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sits in the state Assembly at the state Capitol, June 30, 2023, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

BY LAUREN SFORZA - 10/08/23 8:04 AM ET

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed a bill Saturday that would ban caste discrimination, saying that the bill is unnecessary because current law already covers it.

“In California, we believe everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter who they are, where they come from, who they love, or where they live,” he said in a letter notifying lawmakers of his veto.

“That is why California already prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed,” he continued. “Because discrimination based on caste is already prohibited under these existing categories, this bill is unnecessary.”

The bill, if signed by the governor, would have added caste as a protected class to California’s current anti-discrimination laws. It largely would have targeted the caste system used in South Asian and Hindu communities and would have made California the first state to explicitly ban discrimination by caste.

Senate Bill 403 defined caste as “an individual’s perceived position in a system of social stratification on the basis of inherited status.” Newsom said that this is already covered in current law, despite the state Assembly the state Senate passing the bill earlier this year. 

The hundreds-year-old caste system divides people based on birth or descent. While caste discrimination has been banned in India for more than 70 years, recent pieces of legislation in the U.S. have pushed it into the spotlight.

Seattle became the first U.S. city to add caste to its anti-discrimination laws earlier this year and Fresno, Calif. became the second last month. Proponents of making caste a protected class say that it will protect those in the lowest division in the caste system from bias in housing, education and technology sectors. 

The Associated Press contributed.

TAGS CASTE GAVIN NEWSOM GAVIN NEWSOM

---

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Beautiful piece in The Hill by my colleague, Dr. Rebecca Callahan.  It dovetails perfectly with my earlier post on how to combat hate like what we witnessed recently in Pittsburgh.  Key quote:

 [C]hildren of immigrant parents have demonstrated higher than average participation in America’s democracy.

Research also suggests that bilinguals and children of immigrant parents show significantly higher levels of empathy than monolinguals. As colleagues and I have argued elsewhere, this empathy is a critical step toward civic investment. By definition, children of immigrants, who comprise one in four children in our public schools today, have grown up navigating two perspectives: that of their parents, and that of larger society, including their school and teachers. This ability to recognize others’ perspectives is essential to becoming an active, engaged citizen. A true democracy thrives when it embraces diverse perspectives and experiences.

Let's also remember that vast numbers of recent immigrants emanate from Latin American countries with strong democratic traditions. 
 
We should therefore not only not scapegoat the immigrant community, but we should actually have an asset-based approach.  In the classroom, this should translate into inclusive, equity-based, and culturally sustaining pedagogy and curriculum.

Great job, Dr. Callahan! Keep up the great work!

Angela Valenzuela

Immigrants and their children can save our democracy and revive our country; they always have

 

BY REBECCA CALLAHAN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 10/30/18 01:30 PM EDT

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Getty Images

With the November midterms quickly approaching, many Americans believe 

that our democracy is under siege. Yet it may just be the children of 

immigrants, those young people whose parents are so frequently maligned 

in public discourse and in the press, who can save it. It is these young 

bilingual citizens, the children of immigrant parents, who are one of 

democracy’s greatest social assets — future voters, civic organizers, and 

political leaders.  

A half century ago, in the midst of the War on Poverty, President Lyndon 

Baines Johnson signed the Bilingual Education Act into legislation. 1968 

marked the federal government’s first attempt to address equity through 

language instruction in the schools, and bilingual education emerged as a  

weapon in the war on poverty, enabling bilingual, biliterate students, 

primarily the children of immigrant parents, to become contributing 

members of Johnson’s “Great Society.”

Continue reading here.