Ella Ricketts currently works with John Della Volpe as the Director of Research and Methodology for the Harvard Public Opinion Project.
John Della Volpe, dubbed the “Gen Z whisperer,” serves as the Director of Polling at the Institute of Politics. In his role, he oversees the Harvard Public Opinion Project (HPOP) — a group of approximately 25 undergraduates who create the Harvard Youth Poll, the largest survey of 18-29 year-olds in America. He has contributed insights to NBC, MSNBC, and The New York Times, in addition to authoring “Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America.” The HPR sat down with Della Volpe to discuss the results of the 52nd biannual Harvard Youth Poll.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Harvard Political Review: What was your most surprising takeaway from this year’s poll?
John Della Volpe: What I would say is that we’re entering a new era of young Americans in politics. This is the fourth era that we have witnessed since the youth poll existed over 25 years ago, and what we’re seeing now is a generation that’s still engaged and active and thinking carefully about political issues, but they’re no longer convinced their participation will shape what happens next.
That is the most surprising and most important finding from my analysis so far — Gen Z is starting to question whether anything changes when they show up. We’re seeing now this disconnect between the relevance of politics and the efficacy of politics, or the agency that people have. I think maybe it’s not surprising, but it’s certainly the most important thing that I’ve identified so far.
Perhaps the single biggest number in the entire survey that is connected to the bigger point is that only 12% say they feel motivated and ready to participate in the midterms. We know through dozens of other questions how important and how urgent they see the issues in their lives, community, and in the country, but still only 12% are motivated.
HPR: You recently went to North Carolina for a focus group trip, where you spoke to close to 25 young members of the Greater Charlotte community. What were some of the common themes that came up as you were talking to them?
JDV: We started the conversation like we start so many conversations, before we get into specific policy, or even political views. We just want to understand what their lives were like. I think it’s so incredibly important that we provide opportunities to members of HPOP, to put the issues that we all care about into the context of how people think about them in their daily lives.
We start with asking folks, what’s a good day, what’s a bad day, the kinds of things that stress them out, etc. And I think from there we saw two issues emerge strongly. One is the degree to which so many young people feel economically vulnerable. Whether they were recent graduates who were educators, worked in local governments or in business, or folks who went a different pathway, many were literally working three different jobs just to try to stay ahead of the game and not be without a home. There was at least one, if not more people in that group, who talked about being homeless at some recent point in their lives, or being on the verge of it. And there was one person I’m thinking of now who had three different jobs, and stressed the importance of not getting sick. Because if he gets sick, he misses not just one check, but three checks, which he said could be the difference between having an apartment making rent and not.
The other thing that’s notable is, I believe that focus group happened one week after the initial strikes in Iran. So that was very much present in their lives. And already, I think, through the conversation, younger people were kind of connecting the dots between what was happening in Iran and also what was likely to happen to the economy, specifically gas prices, which are obviously quite sensitive. But I was also struck by the degree to which folks were quite concerned about the conflict coming to affect them, not just economically, but physically as well. A number of people said that Charlotte would be on any target list of Iran or other terror-aligned terrorist organizations because of the financial infrastructure, access to data centers, or other military installations not far away. This was just one weekend, but still very present and very much concerning people’s minds for each of those reasons, economic and also physical risk.
HPR: Comparing the HPOP poll to other polls, it seems that young people in particular are cynical about the war in Iran. Is that mostly due to economic pressures? Or do you think there are other factors going on?
JDV: It’s interesting. First of all, the majority of young people in our polls say and believe that military action number one is not in the best interest of the American people. Regardless of their age, only 18% — less than one in five — believe that the war is in the best interest of the American people. The second thing, which I think makes this action different from other wars and conflicts that young Americans have seen, is that this one so obviously directs them personally, because of the economics, because of the gas price.
However, the survey also shows that a supermajority, close to 75%, are concerned that what’s happening now could expand into a much larger war. Similar numbers are concerned about attacks on U.S. service members, whether they’re here or posted around the world, and that’s something that’s as present in their heads as the economic consequences.
HPR: Let’s move to discussing the midterms, because that’s going to be critical for any campaigners right now. From our poll results, it seems that young Democrats are a lot more motivated to vote at the polls, with 55% saying that they would be voting, compared to 35% of young Republicans. Why do you think that Democrats are more enthusiastic than Republicans?
JDV: I think the kind of the broader picture here is that we’re heading into the midterms, where only 13% of young people say the country’s headed in the right direction, and the highest number ever recorded of folks saying we’re going the wrong direction at 59% — so that’s the overall context. This is the part of the poll that has the most nuance. We have to think really carefully about that. Democrats are quite enthusiastic relative to Republicans. On that one question, Democrats have close to a 20-point lead in a generic ballot when we look at registered voters, and in that lens, that looks really strong for Democrats. In 2018, from the first midterm, we saw similar numbers. Democrats turned out in record numbers.
They saw in those days what Trump was doing, and they were excited and motivated to vote for Democrats to check that. I think there’s clearly elements of that now, specifically because of the promises that the president made around stabilizing the economy with tariffs, and then no more foreign wars. I think that that certainly could be motivating some Democrats to have a check on the president and the House and Senate, but having said that, there are still more Democrats who are cynical about the system.
In terms of voting, you have very high numbers that should concern all of us, who do not trust that the elections will be fair. And a number that should concern Democrats also is that only about one in four approve of the job that Democrats in Congress are doing, essentially tied with Trump and with Republicans. So to me, it’s a very different, more muddied picture than what it looked like in 2018 when you look at all the data. Democrats are more enthusiastic. They say they are. They are more enthusiastic than Republicans. They say they are likely to vote, however there’s another series of questions that concerns me about what turnout might actually be when we get to November, but it’s still quite early.
HPR: What is one piece of advice you would give to Democrats and Republicans about winning this block of young voters?
JDV: It’s an excellent question, and I’d start with the same advice to both. The number one attribute that all young people, Democrat, Republican, and independent are looking for are candidates who share their values. That’s more important than where your fundraising comes from. It’s more important than demographic characteristics, even age, although people clearly want younger folks representing them; the average age for their ideal candidate was 39 years old.
But if people are looking for candidates to share their values, candidates need to start by listening, by deeply listening. And like the ways in which we listen in Charlotte, it needs to go well beyond polling, well beyond even focus groups, and begin to communicate in a way in which younger people feel seen and recognized. They are, by definition, among the most vulnerable people in society, which means that increases in gas price, as an example, hurts this demographic more than others. Increasing rents, in housing expenses, hurts this demographic more than others. And for a Democrat or Republican to successfully motivate and persuade someone, it needs to start with what I would call radical listening. Really try to spend as much time as you can understanding the day-to-day lives of younger people and then connecting specific policies and care about addressing those challenges. That’s where they need to start.
The challenge, though, is that because we have so little trust in institutions and in parties and the government, successful candidates need to take a step further and show their teams exactly what happens when younger people show up: When young people show up in ways that are quite tangible, they can see the improvement in their day-to-day life.
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