Podcast Host Jennifer Welch Says Young Trump Voters Are 'Going Cobalt Blue'

Jennifer Welch, co-host of the I've Had It podcast, said on a recent episode that young voters who backed Donald Trump in 2024 are abandoning the Republican Party in the midterms. Polling of 18- to 29-year-olds backs her up on which way they lean. Early-vote data does not yet show the turnout surge she described.

Welch said she had been watching early voting closely and that "Gen Z is turning out." Then she turned to the young voters who went for Trump two years ago.

"They are completely backtracking and saying no thank you and they are going cobalt blue," Welch said.

She gave no figures. Her remarks came after the show played a video from a 23-year-old listener in Georgia who said he was "ready to see this MAGA regime completely implode on itself." Welch called him "an impressive young man."

Co-host Angie "Pumps" Sullivan said Trump had been "in the spotlight" since the listener was about 10 to 13: "this despicable human that treats people so badly has been in the zeitgeist and on a screen every day since he was 13 years old."

How Gen Z Voted in 2024

Trump made real gains with young voters two years ago. Tufts University's CIRCLE estimated that voters ages 18 to 29 backed Kamala Harris 52 percent to 46 percent in 2024. Trump's share of that group rose 10 points from 2020, when he won 36 percent.

The swing was larger among young men. CIRCLE found that men under 30 backed Trump 56 percent, while 40 percent of young women did.

About 42 percent of eligible young people voted in 2024. That was down from as much as 55 percent in 2020 and roughly level with 2016.

What Youth Polling Shows Before the Midterms

The latest Harvard Youth Poll, conducted September 30 to October 7 among 2,024 Americans ages 18 to 29, found Democrats leading Republicans 63 percent to 26 percent among likely young voters on the congressional ballot.

The same poll found that 63 percent of likely young voters described their congressional vote as opposition to Trump and his policies. Just 32 percent of young people who voted for Trump in 2024 said they identify with the MAGA movement, which suggests his coalition among the young was loose to begin with.

A 37-point lead in a likely-voter poll is far wider than Harris's 6-point edge in CIRCLE's estimate. The two numbers measure different things, one a survey of likely voters' stated congressional vote preference and one an estimate of the actual presidential vote, but the direction matches what Welch described.

Among all voters, Democrats lead by 8.4 points in PolitiKool's polling average of the generic congressional ballot.

The Turnout Problem in Early Voting

Turnout is where her claim runs into trouble. Harvard found that only 33 percent of young Americans say they will "definitely vote" in November. Among young Republicans the figure was 34 percent; among young Democrats, 50 percent.

That means Democrats' lead among young people depends on them showing up.

Georgia has some of the most detailed early-vote data in the country, and it shows young voters as a small slice of the ballots cast so far. Voters under 30 made up about 9 percent of the more than 2 million early ballots cast as of Tuesday, while voters 50 and older accounted for nearly three-quarters, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Georgia's early voting ends Friday.

There was one sign of new energy in the Georgia numbers. More than 110,000 early voters under 30 did not vote in the 2022 midterms.

Young voters also tend to vote on Election Day rather than early, so the early-vote picture leaves the question open in both directions. Republicans have their own worries about the early vote: Fox News host Sean Hannity warned this week that his party's numbers are "not where it needs to be."

What to Watch on Election Day

Election Day is Tuesday. The polling supports Welch's claim about how young people lean. The early ballots do not yet show that they are voting in larger numbers.

Whether the youth vote counts in the Senate and House results will depend less on how young people tell pollsters they lean and more on how many of them actually vote before the polls close.