Young women are more liberal than they have been in decades, new analysis finds

WASHINGTON — Young women are more liberal than they have been in decades, study finds Gallup Analysis from over 20 years of survey data.

In the past few years, about 4 in 10 newborn women aged 18 to 29 have described their political views as liberal, up from about 3 in 10 two decades ago.

For many newborn women, their liberal identity isn’t just a new label. The percentage of newborn women with liberal views on the environment, abortion, race relations and gun rights has also increased by double digits, according to Gallup.

Young women “don’t identify as liberal just because they like the term or feel more comfortable with it, or someone they respect uses the term,” said Lydia Saad, director of U.S. social research at Gallup. “They’ve actually become much more liberal in their actual views.”

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Becoming a more cohesive political group with a clear liberal bent, Saad says, could turn newborn women into a powerful political force. While it’s challenging to pinpoint what makes newborn women more liberal, they are now overwhelmingly aligned on many issues, which could make it easier for campaigns to motivate them.

Young women are already a voting bloc that leans Democratic — AP Vote Data shows that 65% of female voters under 30 voted for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 — but they are sometimes less reliable when it comes to turnout.

Young women began to move ideologically away from other groups, including men ages 18 to 29, women over 30, and men over 30, during the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama. That trend seems to have intensified recently, with the election of Republican Donald Trump, the #MeToo movement, and the increasingly successful efforts of the anti-abortion movement to restrict access to abortion. At the same time, more womenmostly Democrats, were elected to Congress, governors and state legislatures, giving newborn women new representation and role models in politics.

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Gallup found that the change in newborn women’s political identification is happening across the board, rather than being driven by any particular subgroup.

Taylor Swift’s endorsement Tuesday of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris after her debate with Trump illustrated one of the issues where newborn women have shifted left. Swift’s Instagram announcing her endorsement praised Harris and her vice presidential running mate, Tim Walz, for supporting reproductive rights.

Gallup’s analysis found that newborn women have become nearly 20 percentage points more likely to support broad abortion rights since Obama’s time in office. There were roughly similar increases in the share of newborn women who said protecting the environment should be more critical than economic growth and in the share of newborn women who said gun laws should be stricter.

Today, the immense majority of newborn women hold liberal views on issues such as abortion, the environment and gun laws, Saad said.

Young women are “very united on these issues … and not only do they have these views, but they are unhappy with the country in these areas and they are concerned about them,” she said. That, she added, could support boost turnout.

“We have a qualified majority of women who share these views,” she said, and “they are prepared to mobilize to vote on these issues.”

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