Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo
Delegates arrive at the Republican National Convention, July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee.
MILWAUKEE – There’s something surreal about attending a national political convention before voting in my first presidential election. There’s something even more surreal about attending this one.
Last week’s Republican convention attempted to broadcast a message of unity. Speakers waxed poetic about the need to end our divisions and rally around American values, values the Republican Party ostensibly honors and the “Democrat” Party ostensibly rejects. But the only message that emerged as actually consistent throughout the four days was unequivocal support for Donald Trump.
If you watched Sean O’Brien’s address on Monday night, you might assume the party was now pro-union. But Donald Trump’s call for the firing of UAW president Shawn Fain on Thursday would suggest otherwise. Tuesday morning, at an event hosted by Axios, Don Jr. described himself as an everyday guy who enjoyed fishing in Florida, not black-tie dinners. During his speech the next night, he instead was the “kid from Trump Tower in Manhattan,” growing up “worlds apart” from vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance. And Vance’s wife, Usha, proudly described her immigrant parents to a room full of signs boasting “Mass Deportations Now!” Convention-goers cheered speeches blasting Democrats for being soft on crime while wearing “I’m voting for the felon” merch.
Hypocrisy and exaggeration are nothing new to Trump’s campaign. But as the party courts undecided young voters, there’s one clear takeaway: Republicans are striving to be whoever you want them to be.
Recent polls have sounded an alarm that young voters are drifting away from the Democratic Party, especially young men. According to data I helped analyze with the Harvard Youth Poll, Democrats had a 25-percentage-point advantage among young male registered voters in 2020. In 2024, that lead had plummeted to just six points. For young women, affiliation with Democrats over Republicans rose from 26 percentage points to 31. But even among the young people who still identify as Democrats, enthusiasm for Biden was low, especially after the debate.
Republicans see this as a clear opportunity. Most Gen Z voters were in middle school or high school during Trump’s first presidency. This is their first introduction to him as politically engaged adults, and according to the refrains of countless RNC speakers, he’s not what the liberal media says. To the young women scared of losing their reproductive rights, he's really just a loving grandfather, kind and compassionate. To the disaffected young men—nearly half of whom think their generation is too soft—he is “one tough SOB,” at home in a hypermasculine lineup of the wrestling world. Maybe he is both soft and strong, combining those identities as the benevolent patriarch. As the convention’s dizzying praise would tell you, he’s also a shrewd businessman and working-class champion, devout traditional Christian yet tolerant peacemaker, and, of course, “the most patriotic American badass” who spends his days dancing to “YMCA” and playing golf. There’s something for everyone.
Recent polls have sounded an alarm that young voters are drifting away from the Democratic Party, especially young men.
By no means were young people flocking to the Republicans’ convention, however. I scoured the convention halls for other Gen Z attendees and only managed to talk to the UNC frat brothers and a handful of high schoolers—one of whom told me he wished there were younger people in office on both sides. However, I have to imagine that some young viewers seeing the convention through clips on TikTok or Instagram could find something that resonates with them. As Nikki Haley said while endorsing the nominee, “you don’t have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him.” At least with swing voters, that’s what the Republican Party is banking on.
The convention clearly targeted demographic groups traditionally aligned with Democrats. The so-called “everyday Americans” whom the party trotted out to the podium each night included several “lifelong Democrats,” from (legal) immigrants to union members and Black Americans, who testified they’d realized they were not beholden to a party they believed had failed them. Like J.D. Vance and other previous Trump critics, these speakers, too, had seen the light of the MAGA movement.
And, although Trump’s own speech was both rambling and boring, and the Republican Party platform is full of impossible and illogical promises, the RNC’s pledges to make America wealthy, safe, strong, and great again contained moments that could appeal to young voters who feel unheard by Democrats.
For one, the nomination of J.D. Vance finally added a young face to the tickets. Vance made his age provocatively clear in his prime-time speech, saying, “Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington for longer than I’ve been alive.” Throughout all four nights, the chorus of jokes about Biden’s age and the attacks against him for being a “career politician” sounded two distinct notes. It’s no secret that voters were worried about Biden’s age and fitness, especially as the identity that Trump has always claimed is one of the strongman. Countless convention speakers sought to bolster that image (though Trump’s acceptance speech made him appear to be an unfocused old man), and the sea of posters at the RNC didn’t mince words: “Trump = strength, Biden = weakness.”
Biden’s decision to drop out could effectively silence those critiques. But age aside, the jabs at Biden’s long political career spoke directly to some young voters’ suspicion that Biden was not genuine and that his championing of student debt relief, climate action, and other youth-oriented issues were merely ploys to get re-elected. According to the Harvard Youth Poll’s spring findings, young people’s trust in institutions has hit a new low, and only 9 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction. Trump’s appeal as an outsider, just raring to fix a crooked government that doesn’t serve the people’s interests, could be especially strong for these disillusioned voters, however artificial that image actually is.
On the policy front, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, directly addressed young voters’ woes Monday night: “If you’re a 20-something, life has been rough,” he declared. He pointed a finger at Democrats, who “have given hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign nations, while Gen Z has to pinch pennies so they can never own a home.” And, despite being filled with inflammatory, xenophobic rhetoric, night two’s focus on immigration acknowledged a problem that the majority of young Americans agree on: There’s a crisis at the Southern border. Day three reiterated an “America First” approach to foreign policy in line with what I’ve heard from many in my generation who, despite being overwhelmingly sympathetic with people across the world, want the nation’s attention turned back onto troubles at home.
That said, while the Republican Party tried to loudly reassure undecided voters that it isn’t racist, sexist, or trying to tear down democracy, it never once bothered to soften its blatant transphobia. For every speaker who called for unity, another couldn’t resist making a joke about schools teaching “they/them studies,” accompanied by roaring laughter and boos from the crowd. The same people who tried to soften Trump in female voters’ eyes repeatedly asserted that Democrats “can’t even define what a woman is.” Feet away from an all-gender bathroom in one convention building, the Heritage Foundation was handing out pamphlets about “radical gender ideology” and the loss of parents’ rights.
Attacks on the allegedly far-left education system and the LGBTQ+ community went hand in hand. One recently graduated Harvard student spoke to loud cheers about his lawsuit against the university for antisemitism. People I talked to warned me of Harvard’s wokeness and offered their condolences when they learned I’m a student there. This fear of the Great Wokeness presumably silencing undergrads is undermined by the fact that there’s been no significant increase in college students feeling uncomfortable sharing their political views over the last seven years, according to the Harvard Youth Poll.
These tirades cannot be waved off as empty rhetoric. One of the 20 points on the GOP agenda is simply “KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS.” Another pledges to cut federal funding for schools teaching critical race theory or gender ideology. And while fears of censorship on college campuses may be overblown, rising hatred against LGBTQ+ people is not. Although only 25 percent of young Americans think that same-sex marriages are morally wrong, that number has climbed to 53 percent among young Republicans, the highest it’s been in years. Similarly, only 17 percent of young Republicans indicated they’d be comfortable using someone’s preferred pronouns regardless of their sex, compared to 47 percent of all young people. Even as the RNC delivered a jumbled array of messages to undecided young voters, it never shied away from a vitriolic attack on the LGBTQ+ community, a terrifying normalization of bias. The GOP sent a clear signal: Blatant intolerance isn’t OK, unless it’s transphobia.
I doubt the convention will make up many voters’ minds, if any. But what I saw last week is a party willing to throw everything at the wall—hate and lies included—until something sticks. And as the Democratic Party scrambles to replace its aging nominee, some young voters may be willing to turn a blind eye to the parts of the GOP they don’t like and give the party a shot.
