Forty one million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote in November—that’s nearly 17 percent of the electorate, which means their vote matters. And eight million of those Zoomers could be voting for the first time.
Though youth voter turnout is traditionally weaker than other voting blocs, members of Gen Z voted at a higher rate in 2022 than millennials and Gen X-ers did at their age. “This is a very politicized and engaged generation,” says Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGen America, the country’s largest youth voter organization. They are a generation that has dealt with the ramifications of climate change, prolific gun violence, a global pandemic, multiple international wars, and fluctuating economies. They care about the world around them—but they still may need some encouragement to go out and vote.
