Despite their decisive voting power, young women are mocked by the right and overlooked by Democrats who rely on their support.
When young male voters cast their ballots decisively for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, a crisis befell the Democratic Party’s consciousness, with numerous think pieces bemoaning the manosphere and highlighting the need for a so-called Joe Rogan of the left.
According to post-election data, young men voted for Trump with a 14-point margin. Considerably less attention was paid to the young women who voted for Kamala Harris by a 17-point margin. Though young women alone could not deliver a victory for Harris in 2024, their cohesive electoral support for her foreshadowed the decisive Democratic victory that arrived just one year later.
On Nov. 4, 2025, women under 30 voted by over 80 percent for Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Zohran Mamdani in New York City. These sweeping results caught the attention of Fox News’ Clay Travis, who promptly declared, “They’ve all gone insane, young women are actually insane in this country.” Simultaneously on Fox & Friends, anchor Martha MacCallum stated, “I find that very frightening,” after her co-host noted that “young American women are very much far-left.”
While the right-wing media ecosystem views young women as an affliction, the Democratic Party risks taking this group for granted and overlooking their real-life concerns.
Women are more likely to support Democratic candidates than their male counterparts. This pattern, called the gender gap—first identified by Eleanor Smeal, publisher of Ms.—has remained a fixture of American politics in every presidential election since 1980. That support shows that women’s Democratic support is consistent and can be politically decisive. Still, this support should not be taken for granted.
Though women were more likely to vote for Harris than Trump in 2024, she received less support from women voters than Joe Biden did in 2020. As the largest voting group in the United States, having registered and voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980, women and young women’s political priorities deserve the same attention and policy follow-through that political parties give their male counterparts.
While Harris emphasized her pro-reproductive freedom message on the campaign trail in 2024, Democrats as a whole do not have a strong enough track record of committing to enshrining abortion protections into law when they have had more political capital in Washington.
If young women unsettle complacent Democratic leaders or snide conservative commentators, it is because the mainstream political apparatus was never designed to include them.
Abortion access—while exceedingly popular amongst women and the most important issue for 39 percent of women voters aged 18-29 according to a poll from KFF—is not their only concern. Inflation, immigration and threats to democracy remain top of mind for young women voters, according to the same poll, emphasizing the need for multifaceted political messaging that takes concrete steps toward improving the material conditions in young women’s lives.
The way we discuss young women voters matters too. No one likes being pandered to and ridiculed, including young women voters. Raking in celebrity endorsements and attention from Charli XCX, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Alex Cooper is not the same as presenting substantive policy solutions.
Young women’s voting cohesion is driven by shared desires and experiences that have concrete consequences on their lives. These shared experiences do not make this group entirely homogeneous, but instead require political and media institutions to look beyond clichés about youth turnout or partisan loyalty.
Treating young women as caricatures, in the case of right-wing pundits, or foregone conclusions, in the case of some Democratic strategists, obscures the need to treat women as vital and decisive players in the future of our country. The key question is not whether this cohort will vote, given high turnout rates historically, but whether institutions can meet the conditions of their political engagement.
If political parties want to maintain the support of young women, they must deliver actionable policies that protect reproductive freedom, expand affordable childcare, guarantee paid family leave, invest in access to healthcare, and take steps to improve the living conditions of young women. These are concrete steps that meet ideological commitments with material results.
If young women unsettle complacent Democratic leaders or snide conservative commentators, it is because the mainstream political apparatus was never designed to include them. Their electoral power is evidence of a shared set of experiences and desires that warrant action and policy follow-through by elected officials.
The test is not whether they can be mocked into conformity by conservative commentators of Fox News, but whether the country’s political institutions can adequately speak to this significant electorate. Young women have demonstrated their strong political power. The question is whether parties and policymakers will start delivering for them.
