What the Vote? is a limited-run podcast from Michigan Public’s Stateside all about what matters to Gen Z this election year. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
Gen Z is coming into its political power as a generation. And that could make a big difference in this pivotal election year.
Estimates show that 41 million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote this November.
With several tight races in Michigan—including the presidential contest—young people’s impact could be significant up and down the ballot.
So, we wanted to know: how are members of Gen Z leveraging their political power? And what does it mean for young people to have a seat at the table in politics?
We talked to young Michiganders engaging in politics—at the ballot box and beyond—to try and answer those questions.
Why young voters matter
Historically, young voters have turned out for elections at a lower rate than older Americans. During the 2020 general election in Michigan, nearly 70% of the state's citizens 25 or older cast a ballot. By comparison, just over half of Michigan's 18 to 24-year-olds participated at the polls.
But Michigan might be moving the needle.
“I think that it's really important to remember that Michigan is a state where young people have a lot of impact when they can have their voice heard in the elections,” said Sara Suzuki, a senior researcher at the Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).
Suzuki says the state’s efforts to turn out young voters have been among the most successful in the nation. Michigan has seen youth participation in elections more than double since 2014.
In CIRCLE’s Youth Electoral Significance Index for 2024, the state ranks first for youth impact in the 2024 presidential election. This ranking factors in a high youth registration rate and turnout in previous elections. In 2022, Michigan achieved the highest youth voter turnout in 2022 out of all states.
“It's really promising for the state of Michigan. We were looking at Michigan's voter registration numbers for young people in recent months, and it's already higher than the same time in July in 2020,” Suzuki said.
Getting out the vote
One of the young people who has been working to make sure her peers vote is Hillary Poudeu Tchokothe. She’s the co-president of Turn Up Turnout. It’s a student group focused on civic participation and voter registration on campus—and part of a broader civic engagement coalition called UMich Votes.
On a recent September Day, Poudeu Tchokothe and her fellow Turn Up Turnout members set up in front of the University of Michigan Museum of Art. As students passed by on the way to and from classes, Poudeu Tchokothe and others helped them get registered to vote and provide information about how to vote early or absentee. Poudeu Tchokothe said the organization’s peer-to-peer model is key to their success.
“We care about each other. We're students, we’re peers. We see each other in classes,” she explained. “And it's like, you know, less scary that way. Someone that's my age, someone I know that’s in my classes, you know, giving me voting information that cares about me, that wants me to vote wherever I want to vote.”
While there’s a lot of focus on the presidential race, Poudeu Tchokothe said she likes to remind her peers that it’s not just the top of the ticket that matters.
“There's your Senator, your state Senator, your state Representative, and you can vote—you can choose who you want to represent you. And that's the beauty of it, in my opinion,” she said.
One of the races where young people could have a big impact this year is Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. CIRCLE ranks the 7th as the congressional race where young voters could have the strongest impact this November, across the nation.
Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, currently holds the seat, but she’s running for retiring Senator Debbie Stabenow’s open seat. Democrat Curtis Hertel Jr. and Republican Tom Barrett, both former Michigan state senators, are running to replace Slotkin.
The district includes East Lansing, home to Michigan State University, and the capital city of Lansing. But it also includes a large swatch of more rural areas, which tend to vote more conservatively. The race is expected to be close–and a large turnout among young voters could make a difference.
Beyond the ballot box
For some young people in Gen Z, their involvement in politics came long before they could actually cast a ballot. Some became politically aware after major events, like the elections of former presidents Barack Obama or Donald Trump.
For others, the source of their involvement hit closer to home. That was the case for University of Michigan sophomore Aubrey Greenfield.
“I was a survivor of the Oxford High School shooting that took the lives of four students and left seven others injured,” Greenfield said. “And after that, the issue of gun violence became very, very prevalent, and in my face.”
Following the deadly shooting at her high school, Greenfield became an outspoken advocate for gun law reforms. She’s worked with the national organization March for Our Lives and helped organize rallies and marches demanding reform to gun laws. Greenfield says that Gen Z organizers like herself will be important when it comes to making change on the political stage.
“Gen Z brings a fresh perspective. It's one of the most diverse generations, so you can offer many different opinions and perspectives based on diverse backgrounds,” Greenfield said. “Also, this generation is incredibly tech savvy, and because of that, we can use tools such as social media to really advocate for change, and organize, and inform others.”
Her efforts, along with those of other gun reform advocates in Michigan, have produced results. Under a Democratic-controlled state government, the state passed reforms to gun laws in the aftermath of the Oxford High and Michigan State University shootings. Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the legislation, which expanded background checks and included red flag laws, into law in 2023.
For advocates like Greenfield, this was a big moment.
“Actually seeing her put her pen to paper, and hearing everybody in the room cheer and get excited because future kids were going to be protected and future families were going to be spared from losing a child, or an uncle, or an aunt, or a grandparent. It was incredible,” she said.
Not your parents' politics
Gun violence is one among many issues that matter to Gen Z this election, according to polling from CIRCLE and the Harvard Youth Poll.
Some polls show the issues that rise to the top for Gen Z look similar to other generations. Inflation and cost of living tend to rank as Americans’ top concerns across age groups this election, or in general – and that includes Gen Z. But the ways young voters experience these issues is different than the generations before them.
“Young people experience these same issues, like economic issues, uniquely because of the landscape politically, nationally, and economically that they grew up in,” said Suzuki.
According to Suzuki, traditional polling methods often struggle to capture how Gen Z actually understands these issues. Instead of viewing the issues as their own categories, the young people CIRCLE spoke with saw the economy as intertwined with other social issues.
“When we speak to young people more in-depth and beyond simple polling questions, we really hear that these economic issues—they're thinking about [them] as they intersect with issues of race, immigration, religion, and environmental issues...” Suzuki explained. “So young people have a really nuanced analysis of how these issues intersect.”
For Gen Z voters, this intersectionality has influenced how they understand their own political identities.
“This boundary that people try to draw between like economic issues and social issues, I think, is totally false,” said Maya Goldshaw, a senior at the University of Michigan. “They overlap way too much to even draw that line. It doesn't make sense if you actually delve into it at all. Like, economic issues are social issues.”
Other Gen Z voters, like Olivia O’Connell, said that they wanted to see their identities represented by their politicians.
“As a visually impaired woman, I see very few individuals with disabilities leading in political spaces, specifically women with disabilities,” O’Connell said.
O’Connell is a senior at the University of Michigan and the outreach director for the university’s Students for Harris Chapter. It's important, O'Connell said, that politicians have lived through the issues that impact their constituents.
“Having that lived experience informs good policy-making, and also provides new and unique perspectives to issues that have kind of existed for a long time with agreed-upon solutions to them. And those solutions could be improved to fit the needs that we have in 2024, but have not been challenged,” O’Connell said.
So, Gen Z has a unique perspective to bring to politics, but is anyone listening? Many young people remain doubtful that they are being heard—especially by politicians. But experts say they have the power to make lawmakers pay attention—if they turn out to vote.
Vote early (in life), vote often (later on)
Voting in the first years you’re eligible does more than just get your preferred candidates in office.
“You're building your habits for the rest of your life,” said Matt Grossman, a professor of political science at Michigan State University. Grossman also directs MSU’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.
“If you don't vote in three consecutive elections that you're eligible to vote in, your chances of voting after that are pretty low. If you don't pay attention to what's happening in your local city council, or don't know who your state legislator is, when you're young, chances are you're more likely to also exhibit that same behavior later in life.”
That behavior, in turn, can have a major impact on young people’s lives. Voting ensures people can make their voices heard in government. And a younger, more diverse group of lawmakers, Grossman said, is more likely to propose legislation that addresses their specific community's needs.
"Older people are not discriminating against younger candidates. They're not even expressing a preference for older candidates versus younger candidates."
In East Lansing, where Grossman teaches, students make up more than half of the city’s population. However, they rarely participate in local elections, despite living there most of the year.
“Because the college students don't participate in local elections, there is basically no one paying much attention to what the students think,” Grossmann said.
Some college students choose to vote absentee in their home state or district. Others choose to change their voter registration to their college address and vote in local elections.
Grossman says that means students have the potential to majorly affect policies at a local level in a college town like East Lansing.
“When it comes to rent, criminal justice policy, economic development, the role of the downtown,” Grossmann said. “All of those things, student voices are essentially absent from the conversation because of these differences in participation and expected participation.”
Of course, voting isn’t the only way to engage in democracy, even though it is a powerful tool. If Gen Z wants to have a seat at the political table, Grossman said, they should run for office.
In the room where it happens
That’s what Jasper Martus did.
Martus is the representative for Michigan’s 69th House District. He was elected in 2022, and at 24 years old, he is one of the youngest legislators in the Michigan Legislature.
“My mom took me door to door for Barack Obama in 2008. That really instilled a love for politics in my heart,” Martus said.
The Democrat from Flushing represents a Genesee County district that includes parts of Flint and his hometown.
People between the ages of 18 and 25, are much less likely to be political candidates than other age groups. But CIRCLE research shows some signs that could be changing. Over the past 10 years, the rate of young people seeking elected office has slowly risen.
In 2023, Florida representative Maxwell Frost became the first Gen Z member of the U.S. Congress. He’s 27.
Michigan has not sent a Gen Z rep to Congress yet. But there are several state lawmakers who are under 30, a few considered millennials and others are Gen Z.
Martus is one of those lawmakers. While he had political ambitions from an early age, it wasn’t until 2016 that he began seriously pursuing it as a career.
“My congressman, Dan Kildee, has been a tremendous mentor to me. I started working on his campaign and he took a really important approach, which was a team approach, to politics, where the election wasn't just about him, it was about everyone and up and down the ballot,” Martus said.
Kildee’s mentorship allowed Martus to take his first steps into politics. Martus said he was also motivated to run after seeing how many young people were moving away from this community. Some left because of lack of opportunities–others because of the lasting effects of the Flint water crisis. Martus hopes to help reverse this trend.
“I understood that one representative, one elected official could not reverse decades of underinvestment overnight, but I thought it was important that our community had a person who had lived through that, and experienced it, and was bringing that perspective to the table,” he said.
While Gen Z is generally considered more progressive than older generators, young lawmakers come from across the political spectrum.
Bill G. Schuette is a Republican legislator from Midland, and son of former Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette. He’s not technically Gen Z, but he’s a young millennial: 29 years old. Schuette represents the 95th House District.
Like Martus, he says he got involved in politics out of a desire to serve his community. For a few years, Schuette worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency in D.C. But as COVID-19 ramped up and devastating floods hit his hometown of Midland, Schuette said he wanted to return home.
“I wanted to take that passion for public service back home more locally. And, you know, an opportunity opened up in 2022 to run for state Representative.”
Both Schuette and Martus said they have faced some questions about their qualifications and age as they’ve been on the campaign trail. For the most part, though, people were just surprised to see someone their age running for office.
“You're just knocking on someone's door and... I [had] just shaved,” Schuette recalled. “And they'd say, 'Gee, are you 16?' and I'd be like, 'No, actually, I'm 27.'”
But Schuette says his confidence and commitment to the role helped dispel any doubts about his age.
“I tried to take those questions and turn them into a positive. And I think that should be something that young people trying to get involved in politics across the political spectrum should embrace is make your youth an advantage. Don’t let somebody attack you because of that.”
Young people, both lawmakers said, bring a fresh perspective to the process. But, Martus says, to have their voices heard, Gen Z needs to show up to the places where democracy happens.
“My plea to young people is you have to get involved to have a seat at the table,” Martus said. “If you're not showing up to the meeting, if you're not showing up to vote, if you're not letting your voice be heard, then, you know, politicians have a valid excuse to to dismiss you.”
Why not you?
Getting Gen Z engaged in the political process shouldn’t fall solely on young people, though, urged Sara Suzuki, the Tufts researcher working on youth political participation. She said politicians–of all ages–have a role to play in getting Gen Z engaged in the democratic process.
“The tendency and, you know, the strategic decisions with political outreach that happens is to try and target those who are really likely to vote,” Suzuki said. “So because young people can be less likely to vote, you then allocate less resources to reaching them, which then is its own self-fulfilling prophecy.”
And it’s something that Gen Z voters notice.
Harper Schrader is a student at Kalamazoo College and the co-president of the college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Harper said she felt like many of the conversations politicians do have with Gen Z are more about appearances than true engagement.
“I think a lot of politicians just tolerate us and they don't actually listen. I think they just sit in on conversations with us. But I don't see any action ever happening, and I don't feel like they genuinely, at the end of the day, make this a priority for them.”
Lack of participation, Suzuki said, isn't necessarily due to Gen Z not having faith in the system. In fact, she added, the critiques that young people have for the political system is proof that they are invested in making the system work.
“I think they [Gen Z] come with the attitude that their opinions and perspectives matter, even if it is critical. And I think that inviting that two way dialogue is really important for our political process to really break down a hierarchy that we have."
Aubrey Greenfield, the UM student and gun reform advocate, is happy to see politicians paying more attention to Gen Z voices–and to see young people running for office themselves.
But she says there is still work to be done.
“It's important that the older politicians and older generations who are in office collaborate with the younger politicians who are in office. And it's not seen as two separate groups,” Greenfield said. “I believe that as more Gen Z candidates are elected … that it’s all about collaboration, communication, learning from each other and understanding that we can't make progress without being open-minded and talking to each other.”
Young people have a critical role in issues like reproductive rights, gun reform, housing costs, climate change, and more. And if politicians don’t listen, Greenfield said it's up to young people to make their voices heard.
“Why not become the person advocating? Why not advocate for yourself on Capitol Hill? Why not advocate for yourself on politicians' doorsteps? If other people aren't getting the job done, you got to get the job done yourself."
