Gen Z approval of Trump 2026 has dropped sharply, with young voters citing rising living costs and foreign policy concerns. The shift could influence Latino youth voters in California, where economic pressures are hitting hardest.
Young voters across the country overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election. But less than two years into his term, the MAGA leader has completely lost them.
An NBC News Decision Desk poll published Friday reveals a stark reversal in Gen Z’s opinion of the president, indicating that just 24 percent approve of Trump’s performance, while 76 percent disapprove.
The nosedive is in no small part due to the war with Iran and the subsequent cost of living crisis caused by sky high fuel and oil costs. A combined 81 percent of Gen Z respondents said that they either somewhat or strongly disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Iran war, and 72 percent said that the U.S. should stop military operations in Iran altogether.
Some 48 percent of polled young Americans said that inflation and the rising cost of living were the most important economic matters to themselves and their families at the moment, an 8 percent increase compared to August 2025.
Meanwhile, roughly 80 percent of Gen Z respondents said that the U.S. is on the wrong track, the highest percentage of any age group polled, and nearly half, 47 percent, of polled young adults said that they would choose to live in the past if they could. A minority of respondents appeared optimistic about the future. Just 10 percent said they would choose to go less than 50 years into the future if the option were hypothetically available to them, and 5 percent said they would time skip by more than 50 years.
Those polled said that their feelings about the future were informed by their relationship with technology and a growing discomfort with being connected to the internet at all times, NBC News reported. The current technological and geopolitical uncertainty has inspired nostalgia for a less chaotic, less technologically dependent world.
The poll found that 62 percent of Gen Z respondents believed that life will be worse for them than for previous generations. Just 25 percent said that they thought the quality of life would improve compared to the past, and 13 percent said it would remain the same.
