66% of Arizonans age 20-30 say they will definitely vote despite political system dissatisfaction

A new survey of Gen Z voters in Arizona found that, despite disillusionment with the two-party system, most said they plan to vote in the November election.

In May, pollsters surveyed 1,300 registered voters between the ages of 20 and 30.

Two thirds said they definitely plan on voting in the coming election, while another 30% say they likely will.

Gen Z voters expressed a high level of dissatisfaction with the current two party system, and 80% felt the major political parties were out of touch. About half of the respondents were registered as independent.

Arizona State University professor Thom Reilly designed the study, conducted by Noble Predictive Insights.

“I think what we'll see that is since so many independents and and this group of young people that are distinctly independent, that makes predicting outcomes pretty hard,” Reilly said.

Some top issues include cost of living and housing availability. But others, including water security, according to Reilly, means the demographic is engaged and up to date in issues.

"When I kind of probed them where they get their information and I think there's a lot of, perhaps many of them are getting it through TikTok and social media. However, when I pushed them, it doesn't mean they're not fact checking, right. So it doesn't mean they read something on TikTok and they don't Google it right?" He said.

Several ballot initiatives such as abortion access and eliminating partisan primaries were reported to be motivating factors in voting.

Reilly said they will be able to track if respondents actually vote using data from the Secretary of State’s Office.

Full conversation from The Show

MARK BRODIE: Thom, let’s start with this dichotomy, in which Gen Z voters say the two major political parties basically don’t care all that much about them — but those voters still plan to cast ballots in November.

THOM REILLY: Right. I think a lot of the national polling is suggesting, after record breaking participation of young people in 2020 and 2022 that there’s perhaps going to be a falloff in ’24. So we were really interested in looking at those who are registered in Arizona to see whether they’re going to show up at the polls. It’s interesting: In 2022, two-thirds of them that were registered didn’t vote.

So we were kind of interested to see, if you are going to vote, what would drive you to the polls? … And as you said, young people are frustrated with the system, but they’re still engaged and they still are indicating that they’re going to exercise their right to vote, which I thought was very encouraging. Two-thirds of these young people said they’re very likely or likely to show up in November.

BRODIE: So what do they plan on doing? Like, who are they planning on voting for if they’re not really thrilled with either of the two major parties?

REILLY: So we looked at those that were registered. I mean, this group of Gen Z voters in Arizona are distinctly independent. About 50% of them are independent, more than the two parties combined. About a third are Latino. So what we did was we asked them specifically what are some of their top issues.

And like the general population, most of the drivers are economic: their cost of living, housing affordability, health care and jobs. We also saw that reproductive rights and fair and secure elections were top issues for them. And signaling a regional issue, water was top of mind.

Which I think also underscores that this group of voters, despite concerns that they’re disengaged, are engaged on the issues. They, as I said, are frustrated. They feel like most politicians are corrupt. Four out of 5 of them feel that the two major parties don’t represent their interests or the interest of the country, which we found was very startling, that number.

And I can tell you that when I was doing the focus groups, putting the survey together, this was a significant thematic issue of the young people in voicing their — and I characterize it as anger. They’re saying that the parties are not helpful in giving them information to make informed decisions. Everything is so polarized. We have these complex issues that we’re trying to understand, and the parties have these two diametrically opposed positions. So they’re not using the parties for their information, but they seem still engaged in the major issues of the day.

Arizona State University

BRODIE: Does it seem as though they feel about the parties mostly at the top of the ticket? Like, do they make a distinction between how maybe the presidential candidates in the Democratic and Republican parties talk or the Senate candidates versus, let’s say, a state legislative candidate or other sort of downballot races? Or is it all kind of the same to them?

REILLY: Well, we did ask falloff from, are you going to participate at the presidential level, then for Congress and Senate, state races, ballot issues and then judicial races. And we did see some falling off, particularly around the issue of nonpartisan judicial races. But surprisingly, we saw a good deal of engagement, or at least they’re saying they’re going to be committed to looking at those issues, particularly some of the ballot issues.

Now, the ballot issues were very interesting because of those individuals that did not vote in 2022 — which is about two thirds of those that are registered — the drivers for many of those, particularly the independents, were the ballot issues, were the open and fair elections, were the reproductive rights and minimum wage. They indicated that those issues in particular would drive them to the polls.

BRODIE: Did they suggest that they would maybe vote for other candidates as well, or are they mostly motivated by those issues? Maybe vote for those and pick and choose a couple others, maybe not fill out the whole ballot?

REILLY: A lot of them felt that the two major candidates weren’t representative. They wanted more choices for the president. They were open to a third party candidate. We specifically didn’t ask them: Are you going to vote for the former President Trump or Biden? And we’re more interested in specific issues and whether they’re going to show up to vote in ’24.

BRODIE: So does this tell you that or at least suggests that the major parties should be trying to talk more about these issues? Does it seem like maybe the ship has sailed on the two major parties really being able to reach this demographic of voters?

REILLY: Well, if I was part of one of those campaigns, Republican or Democrat, I would be very alarmed that we have such a large percent. First of all, half of them aren’t even registered with the parties or not even engaged with them, but that 80% felt that the parties were not meeting their interest as young people or the best interest of the country.

So it should be a red flag to the parties that they need to engage with these young people and they need to engage at the media sources that they’re going to be responsive to. And one of the questions we did ask is: Where do you get your media sources and your information?

Now, again, going back to these focus groups, I pushed a lot of the young people in this on that. The reality is that most of them get it from social media. TikTok in particular is where they’re getting their information. But I was very interested in how do they fact check? Do they just accept this information at face value?

And I was really surprised at the pushback I got. And they’re saying, “We’re introduced to these issues on these platforms, but it doesn’t mean we don’t Google them to fact check. So we’re not just taking everything at face value.”

BRODIE: So given that you’re looking at specifically Gen Z voters, the youngest voters who are able to be registered, that does what you found suggest about what the future of politics in Arizona might be like?We’ve seen, for example, independents are usually the second most popular group behind Republicans. Does this in any way signal some kind of shift going forward as these voters grow up and maybe some of the older voters stop voting?

REILLY: I do. I think it would be very interesting to track Gen Z voters to see if these numbers stick on those that are registered — not just say they’re independent, but actually registered independent. And it could be somewhat of a bellwether that as as our politics become more polarized and people are leaving parties, this may be where many other states are going.

It’s interesting. Last week, Gallup came out with their monthly statistics about political affiliation. And historically, now 51% of those in the U.S. identify as independent. So this group will be really interesting to see if these numbers hold. And I think that has pretty dramatic implications for how our partisan system works.

Particularly when there’s issues out there, there’s candidates or there’s or ballots that people don’t understand, they tend to go to their political playbooks, right? The Republicans, the Democrats.

Now we have a whole generation of young people that have never used those playbooks. So these platforms where they’re getting their information are more important, and equipping young people with the tools to fact check and make informed decisions are really important. And if the parties would offer that, instead of this polarized rhetoric that is clearly turning off this generation of voters, I think they can make great strides with this population.