young women – A widening political gender gap is showing up in the country’s youngest voters: Gallup data from 2024 finds 40% of U.S. women ages 18–29 identify as liberal, compared with 25% of men. Students across campuses describe how that split is shaped by lived experien
On a campus where politics is supposed to be a conversation—not a wedge—Marina Martinez watched her own group turn into a mirror.
The University of Oregon sophomore joined her school’s chapter of Citizen’s Climate Lobby. a national organization dedicated to advocating for effective climate solutions in Congress. Martinez said she sees small acts as a way to make a difference. and she runs day-to-day outreach as the club’s secretary. But the club’s participation doesn’t reflect the broader student body. Out of 25 regular members, none are men.
“There just seems to be a higher number of women who are eager to take actual day-to-day political action on the left-leaning side,” Martinez said. She isn’t claiming her club is the whole story. She’s just the kind of person who notices patterns—and then pushes for action.
Nationwide, the data suggests Martinez’s sense is part of something larger. A Gallup Poll published in 2024 found that 40% of U.S. women aged 18–29 identified as liberal, the highest percentage in decades. Among men in that same age group, 25% identified as liberal.
“It is just an enormous difference these days,” said Marc Hetherington, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies the dynamics of the American electorate.
Hetherington said this political “gender gap” is largely driven by the behaviors of young women. He argued that young women are not only more liberal than young men—they are more liberal than women of other generations. by a long shot. And he said the trend has been rising in Gallup’s earlier snapshots.
In the period from 2001–2007, an average of 28% of women aged 18–29 identified as liberal. Then, between 2008–2016, that average grew to 32%. In the most recent period of data—from 2017–2024—40% of young women in that age cohort identified as liberal. Hetherington said that is a 12-point increase in 23 years.
“The below-30 women really stand out as being different from even women of older age cohorts,” Hetherington said.
Young men, by contrast, have not followed the same trajectory. Over the past 25 years. the share of men aged 18–29 who identify as liberal has fluctuated. but has generally hovered in the 20–30% range. In 2001, 25% of men in this age cohort identified as liberal—the same percentage who identify as liberal now.
For Khasya Tinglin. a junior at the University of Texas at Austin. the numbers match what she saw in her classes long before she had language for it. Tinglin is a Rhetoric and Writing major, but she studied International Relations during her first two years of college. She said she frequently noticed a divide in her required courses—particularly in political science and international relations.
Tinglin said male students were more likely to express conservative views, becoming especially noticeable in class discussions about current events and foreign conflicts.
“It was a very unempathetic and unemotional way of looking at the world,” Tinglin said. “There’s multiple perspectives when you’re looking at international relations. You can always do the state argument, but those are actual people’s lives.”
Hetherington offered one possible driver for that gap: the way support for many women’s issues has become distinctly partisan. He said reproductive rights and gender equality have increasingly split along party lines.
“In my generation, when we were young, there wasn’t a giant difference between the Republicans and Democrats on gender issues,” Hetherington said. “And to the extent that there was a difference, it was really kind of just opening up in the 1980s.”
As an example, Hetherington pointed to the presidential election of 1976, when both Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter and Republican candidate Gerald Ford were pro-life and expressed personal opposition to abortion. He then contrasted that with what happened after Roe v. Wade.
Just a few years prior, when the US Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade. Hetherington said the majority opinion held that a woman’s right to an abortion was protected by the right to privacy. and it was authored by Justice Harry Blackmun. Blackmun, along with four other justices in the 7–2 majority, was appointed by a Republican president.
“These things have changed a lot, starting in the 1980s, but those types of changes take a while,” Hetherington said. “So, when we were being politically socialized, the choice between the parties was not that stark.”
But he said the political context young women are growing up in is different. Young women today, he said, have watched a conservative Supreme Court with a majority of Republican-appointed justices overturn Roe v. Wade.
Hetherington added that other gender issues—such as women’s rights and equality initiatives—have also become more partisan in the past 20–30 years, which makes women more likely to flock to the party that supports those rights.
For Maggie Oliver, a junior majoring in political science at Pace University, those issues are personal, not theoretical. Oliver is a registered Democrat and works on the campaign for Alex Flores. a Democratic candidate running for New York’s 12th Congressional District. She said reproductive health care access shaped why she became politically active.
“Young men specifically have the luxury of not having to worry about a lot of the same things that I feel like I watched myself worry about growing up,” Oliver said. “I had to think about birth control when I was 15 years old just as healthcare for menstruation.”
Hetherington said the Democratic Party’s focus on gender issues can also alienate young men. He cited Harold Laswell’s definition of politics—who gets what. when and how—and said that when men look at what the Democratic party seems to offer on gender issues. they feel there isn’t much on offer for them.
But the gender gap isn’t being explained only by party messaging. Education, too, could be pulling it wider.
Data from the Pew Research Center shows that since the late 1990s. US women have been outpacing men in receiving a college education. Presently, 47% of women between the ages of 25 and 34 have a bachelor’s degree, compared with just 37% of men. Pew also found women surpass men in bachelor’s degree completion in every major racial and ethnic group. though the gap varies.
Pew’s surveys also found that education is strongly associated with partisanship. Adults who have completed a four-year college degree are significantly more likely to identify with the Democratic Party, suggesting education could be contributing to young women’s leftward shift.
And Hetherington pointed to ideology among young men as a factor in elections. Preston Hill, who was president of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Young Republicans club during the 2025–26 academic year, said he thinks the male demographic is a “secret weapon” for candidates.
He pointed to the 2024 election. In an analysis by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. roughly 56% of men aged 18–29 voted for President Donald Trump in 2024. a reversal from 2020. when about the same amount supported Joe Biden. In comparison, 40% of young women in that same age group voted for Trump in 2024.
Hill said it was the first time a majority of young male voters backed a Republican presidential candidate since the 1988 election of George H. W. Bush.
Hill said conservatives made an offer young men felt they had been waiting for: a sense of being “left out” by the Democratic Party and dissatisfaction with the Biden administration over issues like the economy and immigration.
For Kai Lindsey, a junior at UT-Austin, the shift is something he can name. Lindsey said he and some of his male peers felt “swept aside” by liberal ideologies he believes are becoming more extreme.
“When it comes to things like affirmative action and hiring, some of that rhetoric definitely pushed me a little bit to see conservative ideology as more accepting or more caring for my personal issues,” Lindsey said.
Hill said gender was also a target in the 2024 presidential election. He pointed out that Trump accepted an invitation to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast. which has an audience primarily of young men. while Kamala Harris did not. Hill said Harris campaigned primarily with female influencers and touted an endorsement from Taylor Swift. In the end, he argued, it paid off more for Trump to go after younger men.
Briana Edwards. a graduate research assistant at the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media. said the kind of content young men consume is likely influencing their conservative slant. Edwards said much of the online content targeted toward young men is part of the manosphere. an ecosystem of toxic male online communities she studied for her master’s thesis.
Edwards said this political content manipulates young men’s sense of being discounted by the political system and gives them someone to blame: women.
“It’s misplaced blame,” Edwards said. “I’ve been articulating it as men are looking across at women. They’re looking horizontally versus looking vertically. They need to look up at systems that are acting on them. and look side to side at the women who are facing the same experiences they are in this country. but handling it.”.
Edwards said the manosphere contains subgroups of content. Not all of it is inherently political. She said the ideologies she studied include Christian nationalism, men’s rights activism, and anti-woke rhetoric. Edwards said even content that is not outwardly political tends to emphasize conservative values.
Many ideas, she said, center on a desire to return to traditional gender norms and values. Edwards argued that longing for the past is something Republican candidates leverage in their rhetoric.
“I think Trump, RFK, and the broader manosphere does that very well,” Edwards said. ‘Make America Great Again.’ ‘Make America Healthy Again.’ ‘Let’s return to traditional gender norms.’ I think people want to imagine a world where things could be better. But. instead of imagining or speculating about what the future could be. we look at what the past was—what we think it was. There’s that weaponization of nostalgia. I think both groups do it very well.”.
As more young men consume this content, Edwards said, they become disconnected from young women—both politically and socially.
That disconnect is showing up beyond the ballot box.
For Lea Martin, a sophomore at the University of Oregon, political disagreements contributed to ending a relationship. Martin said her partner identified as a liberal but did not vote in the 2024 presidential election. She said it was disappointing that the beliefs didn’t turn into action.
“He didn’t actually vote in the [2024 presidential] election,” Martin said. “He didn’t put any action behind his words. It was just disappointing.”
Martin was raised in a politically active family and, she said, attended her first protest at 8 years old. She continued to participate in women’s marches and rallies defending the academy as she grew up. Now, she said her political views are not just beliefs—they are part of her value system.
“I would say I’m definitely very liberal,” Martin said. “I think everyone deserves equal rights, and the environment deserves protection. I could never be that close with someone who doesn’t have my same ethos.”
A recent study from the University of California at Irvine found that 37% of Americans reported experiencing a “political breakup” with friends, partners or family members at some point in their lives. The research suggests the trend might be accelerating, particularly since the 2024 election.
It’s happening against a backdrop where women are already staying single longer and delaying having children. Using Census Bureau historical data, Morgan Stanley predicted that 45% of women ages 25–44 will be single by 2030, which would be the largest share in history.
Lindsey said he worries about the long-term effects of the widening divide. He said when people think about starting families, ideological differences between men and women can deepen.
“With this growing ideological divide, when people are thinking about starting families, I think there’s a disconnect,” Lindsey said. “There’s a growing disconnect between husbands and wives. where the man may have a certain expectation of the wife that the wife does not want to adhere to or. or vice versa. I’m a big believer in the idea that getting married and having kids is an objectively good thing for the country. Seeing the ideological differences of men and women sort of butting heads with each other. I think. is a really bad sign.”.
Rue Siddiqui, a junior at DePaul University in Chicago, said she worries about polarization too. She founded DePaul’s chapter of BridgeUSA, a student movement designed to fight political division by championing viewpoint diversity and responsible discourse.
Siddiqui said the club meets twice a month to discuss a pre-selected topic. She said topics have included immigration, DEI initiatives, and local Chicago issues. During discussions, Siddiqui said all viewpoints are welcome. She said an executive board moderates conversations to keep them productive.
Siddiqui said she’s noticed that many of the members who discuss more conservative takes tend to be male students. But she also said participants leave the meetings not necessarily with their minds changed, but with a sense of mutual respect.
Siddiqui hopes that respect can cross the gender lines too.
“When it comes to men and women, those differences might never go away,” Siddiqui said. “I’m not saying that they never will. But until we can talk to each other, nothing’s really going to change.”
The numbers, the campus anecdotes, and the personal stakes all point in the same direction. In this generation’s politics, the gap isn’t just ideological—it’s relational. And for young people trying to build their futures, that difference can feel like more than a debate. It can feel like a split that follows them home.
United States politics gender gap Gen Z young voters Gallup poll 2024 liberal conservative reproductive rights education manosphere elections 2024 Donald Trump Joe Biden Kamala Harris Jimmy Carter Gerald Ford Roe v. Wade political polarization