the covid divide

things right now 033—week of 04.21.25

The COVID Divide or the Yale Youth Poll

Polling is a messy art, but when it replicates the same findings over and over again we should listen. And what keeps being replicated over and over again—this time in the Yale Youth Poll—is that the youngest adults, those under 21, have shifted substantially to the right.

This defies conventional wisdom about the political divide in America. On more than one occasion, I’ve had to correct a friend in casual conversation about this. They presume Donald Trump is most popular with the oldest Americans, those over 65, when that is actually the demographic with which he is most unpopular.

Some of the most interesting topline findings:

• 22-29 year-olds favored Democrats by +6.4 points

• 18-21 year-olds favored Republicans by +11.7 points

In February, I proposed that COVID had scrambled our generational definitions. This poll corroborates that position. To graduate high school before the COVID lockdowns, you would need to be born around 2001 and 2003, i.e. you would be between 22 and 24 today. Increasingly, the commonly accepted dividing line between Zoomers and Millennials seems like it should be 2002, not 1997.

Other interesting findings, the net favorability of our most prominent politicians among all voters, in order of favorability:

• Trump, -6.2 points

• Harris, -12.5 points

• Vance, -13.5 points

• Musk, -18.9 points

• Biden, -21.3 points

Among voters under 30:

• Harris, -1 points

• Trump, -17.9 points

• Biden, -19.5 points

• Vance, -30 points

• Musk, -34.7 points

I really wish we had the favorability ratings for under 21s as well.

Big takeaways:

• Voters under 30 skew left

• But voters under 21 skew right

• Elon Musk is the most unpopular active political figure in America—let’s exclude post-presidential Biden from the mix

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Sloane Rangers or Kaitlin Phillips’ Gift Guide

Last week, I wrote about Princess Diana, who has lately been on my mind. Kaitlin Phillips also covered Diana and her style cohorts, the Sloane Rangers. Named after Sloane Square in West London, they offered a specifically British and femme twist on what we would call preppiness in the United States. Kaitlin includes a link to a PDF copy of The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook.

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Happy Easter or Trumpian social media realism

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