Gen Z isn't a monolith — and the data shows it

Politicians and institutions treating them as a monolith risk misreading the country's young people.That partisan split between two distinct sub-generations became evident in 2024, with young men, in particular, swinging rightward.The divide runs deeper than the ballot box, shaping the way younger and older members of the generation view institutions, brands and tech, and even how they develop trust.Context: Rachel Janfaza, author of The Up and Up newsletter, coined Gen Z 1.0 and Gen Z 2.0 based on her work with high school and college students.Gen Z 1.0 graduated high school before COVID-19 and grew up without TikTok. Black Lives Matter was part of the cultural zeitgeist. Gen Z 2.0 graduated after the pandemic, their school years shaped by masking, quarantines and remote learning.No other generation in modern history had been through this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, Janfaza tells Axios. And, no other generation has had the core mode of communication and culture shift as quickly as ours.Amanda Edelman, of Edelman's Gen Z Lab, says Gen Z 1.0 came of age during Trump's first term and rebelled against the right. But, with 2.0, there has been a tremendous backlash.By the numbers: In Yale's spring 2026 youth poll, 52 of voters aged 18–22 favored Democrats on the congressional ballot — a dramatic reversal from a year earlier, when they favored Republicans by nearly 12 points.The one exception: men aged 18–22, the sole young demographic that shifted away from Democrats.The earlier rightward tilt wasn't driven by true conservatism, Edelman says, but by rebellion and also being very frustrated with the status quo.Caveat: Yale's 18–22 subsample skews male, according to the poll's write-up. A larger share of the youngest voters remain undecided (18) compared to their elders, so the numbers may shift again. But the broader pattern of volatility shows up across polling.What they're saying: Eli Kalberer, a 17-year-old high school junior and New Voters 250 Fellow, says young Americans are swayed by politicians who connect with them.I think the ability of either party to actually show that they're in touch with young people, or to be young people themselves, has a huge impact on the young vote, he says, pointing to the Gen Z fervor New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani ignited.Young people, he says, are tired of culture war stuff when they face real affordability problems and cost of college concerns.Jess Siles, communications director at Voters of Tomorrow and a member of Gen Z 1.0, says disillusionment with democracy cuts across the entire generation.The split, she says, shows up in how each cohort channels that disappointment in how they vote and how they organize.The divide has driven chasms on AI, dating behavior, foreign policy and their quality of life. The younger group is less trusting of journalists, CEOs and even other customers, per Edelman's research.Adults in power, Janfaza says, really broke Gen Z's trust during the pandemic, leaving them feeling like the guinea pigs of these restrictions. The bottom line: The years separating Gen Z's oldest and youngest members have been so culturally transformative that the generation's earlier unity is a memory.We went from a very unified generation to now a bifurcated generation, Edelman says. And she predicts, this generation will continue to divide.Go deeper: Report: Young Trump voters drive a sharp cultural turn