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Women give Harris a big advantage among young voters, while men are divided

Half of registered voters under 30 plan to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and a third agree with former President Donald Trump – relatively unchanged from a previous survey in August, according to the new NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z poll. Powered by SurveyMonkey.

And among young voters who say they will vote in November's presidential election, Harris leads 56% to 36%, a 20-point margin. With some young voters favoring other candidates on the ballot besides Harris and Trump, that's just shy of the 24-point lead President Joe Biden had among voters under 30 in 2020 (60% to 36%), according to the exit poll from NBC News.

However, within Generation Z, there are clear divisions between different groups – and the gender gap is particularly large.

Young women said they would vote for Harris over Trump by a 33-point margin. The young men were essentially even, with Harris holding a 2-point lead.

Men (46%) were more likely than women (30%) to believe Trump had the right temperament to serve as president. Accordingly, women (65%) were more likely to say Harris had the right temperament than men (55%).

The gender differences can be found in the issues that young voters say are most important to their vote. While inflation and the cost of living were top issues for both men (35%) and women (29%), they had different opinions about what came next: 13% of women chose an abortion, compared to 4 % of men. Among men, 13% cited threats to democracy as their most important issue, compared to 9% of women who cited this issue.

There were also large gender differences in the role that abortion policy will play in the selection of a candidate. Nearly half of young women (48%) said they would only vote for a candidate who shared their views on abortion, compared to 36% of men.

The support of friends and family is more important than high-profile celebrities

As voters are bombarded with messages from politicians, political organizations and media organizations, 45% of young voters say they will pay most attention to the opinions of family, friends and colleagues when deciding which candidate to support for president .

About a third of young voters said they would pay attention to support from political leaders (38%) and organizations they belong to (31%).

Six in 10 Gen Z voters who said they would vote for Harris reported that it would put a strain on their relationship if a friend planned to vote for Trump. On the other hand, only about a quarter of those who plan to vote for Trump said their friendship would be strained if a friend voted for Harris.

At a time when celebrities and influencers can have more influence than our elected officials, celebrity endorsements are believed to have the potential to change the course of a political campaign. Perhaps the most prominent endorsements for the 2024 cycle came from pop superstar Taylor Swift, who supports Harris, and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who supports Trump.

Only 11% of Gen Z voters said supporting Swift would make them more likely to vote for Harris, while 17% said supporting Elon Musk would make them more likely to vote for Trump.

In fact, this data suggests that these endorsements may be backfiring. For Swift, 19% of young voters said her support is what defines her fewer They are likely to vote for Harris, and 29% of voters said Musk's support persuades them fewer probably vote for Trump.

Still, only 8% of voters surveyed said they would look to celebrities as a potential source of information when making their voting decisions.

Negative views on the economy and the direction of the country

Only 19% of young voters say the country's economy is better today than it was a year ago, compared with 57% who say it is worse.

Young voters are slightly more positive and divided about their own finances: 30% say they are personally better off than they were a year ago, while 37% say they are worse off.

Economic pessimism is also reflected in views of the country as a whole.

Just 22% of young voters said the country is on the right track – 10 points lower than in the August NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z poll. Likewise, 77% said the country is heading in the wrong direction – a 10-point increase from August.

Views of the vice presidential candidates fell slightly

Half of young voters have a positive view of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, including 23% who rated him as an excellent vice presidential choice. Another 27% have a negative opinion of him.

A third of young voters have a positive opinion of Trump's vice presidential pick, JD Vance, and 45% have a negative opinion of him.

Overall, negative views of both vice presidential candidates increased slightly compared to the August poll, which was conducted after the Democratic convention – and well before Walz and Vance met in their debate in early October.

This NBC News Stay Tuned Gen Z poll was Powered by SurveyMonkeythe fast, intuitive feedback management platform where 20 million questions are answered every day. The survey was conducted online Oct. 10-21 among a statewide sample of 2,119 registered voters ages 18 to 29. Data were weighted to the total population of 18- to 29-year-olds for gender, race, census region (all from the American Community Survey), and partisanship (from the Cooperative Election Study). The estimated margin of error for this survey is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The sampling error associated with the subgroup results is higher.

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