Young Voters Vehemently Oppose Trump, ICE; See Big Risks and Some Benefits to AI

Plus, new polling on the prevalence of antisemitic beliefs across the American public, 2028 primaries, presidential powers, and more.

Table of contents

• Key Takeaways
• Young Voters Massively Disapprove of Trump, Plan to Vote for Democrats in 2026
• Vance Leads 2028 GOP Primary; Democratic Primary Split By Age
• Voters Are Largely Skeptical About AI
• Voters Hold Negative Views of ICE, Executive Overreach
• Young Voters Remain Most Likely to Express Antisemitic Beliefs
• Literature Reviews

Key Takeaways:

Younger voters overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump and plan to vote for Democrats in 2026.

• 57% of all voters disapprove of Donald Trump’s job performance as president, including 68% of voters aged 18-22 and 72% of voters aged 23-29. Compared to the fall 2025 poll, Trump has lost the most ground with women under 35 and men under 30.
• Among voters overall, Democrats lead the generic ballot by 2 points. Voters 18-22 are D+23, and voters 23-29 are D+30. Compared to the fall poll, Democrats have gained the most ground with women ages 18-45 and men ages 23-34. 
• When deciding their vote, the most important issue for young voters is the cost of living/affordability, followed by corruption, democracy, healthcare, and housing.

The 2028 Democratic primary electorate is divided by age. Overall, Kamala Harris leads the field with 20%, followed by Gavin Newsom (19%), Pete Buttigieg (14%), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (13%). Among Democrats under 35, Ocasio-Cortez comes first; Newsom leads among seniors. Democrats see Newsom as their party’s most electable candidate, followed by Mark Kelly, Andy Beshear, and JB Pritzker. 

In the 2028 Republican primary, JD Vance leads the field with 43% of the vote, followed by Marco Rubio at 17%. Compared to the fall 2025 poll, support for Vance dropped by 8 percentage points while support for Rubio increased by 12 percentage points. Once again, about half of Republicans (47%) say they would vote for Donald Trump in the GOP primary if he ran for an unconstitutional third term. 

Among voters overall, 55% say they use AI either a few times a month or never. Young people are more likely to use AI tools, with over half of voters under 30 saying they use AI a few times a week or more. People most commonly use AI for everyday tasks (such as making meal plans, creating playlists, or writing emails), followed by work or school purposes.

Voters are skeptical of AI and its effects on society.

• A majority of voters think that AI should not play any role driving public buses, trains, or subways (58%) or in making decisions in military combat situations (54%), while most remaining voters believe humans should do most of the work with some AI assistance (24% and 33%, respectively).
• A plurality say that AI should not play any role in making patient decisions in healthcare settings (48%) or in reading job applications and making hiring decisions (45%), while most remaining voters believe humans should do most of the work with some AI assistance (40% and 39%, respectively).
• Voters are split on whether AI should be used for K-12 teaching: 46% say humans should do most of the work with some AI assistance, while 41% say humans should do all of the work. 
• Only a minority of 26% agree that “the benefits of AI will outweigh the harms,” compared to 43% who disagree and 31% who are not sure.
• Voters see the most significant benefits of AI as assisting people with disabilities and achieving scientific breakthroughs, though they shared (in an open-ended question) that the biggest beneficiaries will be tech companies.
• Voters see the most significant risks of AI as generating false or misleading information and making it easier for people to rely on AI instead of learning or thinking for themselves.
• Voters expressed in an open-ended question that they believe that jobs, workers, the environment, and children are harmed most by AI.

Young voters are more likely to express confidence in their ability to recognize whether text, images, videos, or audio recordings of human voices have been generated by AI. But in a test, voters did little better than a coin toss at identifying the AI-generated images from a mix of AI and real images, regardless of their self-reported confidence level.

The survey also asked voters which powers they believed the president should or should not have. Majorities disagreed that the president should have the authority to carry out military strikes without congressional approval (53%), exert control over independent financial regulatory agencies (55%), direct the Department of Justice to investigate political opponents (58%), cancel congressionally-approved funding without congressional approval (60%), or continue their administration’s policies in defiance of court rulings (67%).

Voters hold broadly negative views of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While 67% of voters said that police officers made them feel safer in their communities, just 38% said the same of ICE agents. Among all voters, 27% favored eliminating ICE funding entirely, 23% favored reducing the ICE budget, 21% favored maintaining the ICE budget at current levels, and 21% favored increasing it. A plurality of voters aged 18-22 (44%), 23-29 (43%), and 30-34 (45%) favored eliminating the ICE budget entirely.

Finally, this survey finds that younger generations are both more likely to hold antisemitic beliefs and more likely to have negative views of Israel.

When presented with a battery of three antisemitic statements, two-thirds of voters agreed with none of them. But young voters, nonwhite voters, men, and those who turn to social media for news were the most likely to agree with one or more antisemitic statements. Generally, few Americans agree with antisemitic conspiracy theories or Holocaust distortion, although a quarter (25%) agree with a version of the antisemitic claim that “Jews have an extremely organized international community that puts their own interests before those of their home countries.” About 27% of voters believe that “the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation,” and about 31% believe that “being Christian is an important part of being truly American.”

This poll also finds that young people are more likely to agree with anti-Israel statements (paraphrased from quotes by Nick Fuentes and Rashida Tlaib) and less likely to agree with pro-Israel statements (paraphrased from quotes by Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley and Ritchie Torres). 

• Among voters overall, 35% agreed with the statement “America should end the slavish surrender to Israel, its wars, and its demands for foreign aid” (paraphrased from Fuentes). That share rises to 55% of voters aged 18-22 and 52% of voters aged 23-29.
• Similarly, 34% of voters overall agreed with the statement “Israel is an apartheid state, engaged in racist oppression against Palestinians” (paraphrased from Tlaib). That share rises to 55% of voters aged 18-22 and 54% of voters aged 23-29. 

Still, the only statement to receive support from a majority of respondents (59%) was Chuck Schumer’s position that “Israel is a democracy and the safe haven of the Jewish people, but they have a moral obligation to ensure humanitarian treatment of Palestinian civilians.” While 66% of Democrats strongly or somewhat agreed with this statement, a notable 55% of Republicans agreed as well, making it the most popular position across both parties.

Young Voters Massively Disapprove of Trump, Plan to Vote for Democrats in 2026

Most voters (57%) disapprove of President Donald Trump’s job performance, compared to 41% who approve. Young voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the president’s performance, with large majorities of voters aged 18-22 (68%), 23-29 (72%), and 30-34 (75%) expressing disapproval.

Since the fall 2025 Yale Youth Poll, President Trump’s approval has decreased, particularly among young voters. In fact, Trump’s net approval has fallen among both men and women of every age bucket under 35 years old. Interestingly, women ages 34-44 turned against Trump by the largest margin (28 points), while men in that age group actually swung more in favor of Trump than any other gender-age group (13 points). Note that the fall and spring samples are slightly different and that these are relatively narrow crosstabs, so the specific numbers should be taken with a grain of salt; nonetheless, some of these shifts were large enough to warrant mention.

Although voters disapprove of Trump by large margins, Democrats lead the generic ballot by just two percentage points overall. Note, though, that this survey offered the option of “Don’t know” and did not force undecided voters to pick a side; surveys that do push leaners typically find Democrats doing better in the generic ballot, particularly among respondents who say they are likely to vote. 

Still, majorities of young voters are planning to vote for Democrats, including 52% of 18-22 year-olds, 58% of 23-29 year-olds, and 62% of 30-34 year-olds. Unfortunately, the subsample of 18-22-year-olds is relatively male-skewed, so it is hard to determine whether the overall gap between younger and older Gen Z voters is meaningful. In addition, younger voters have a higher share of voters who “don’t know” for which party they plan to vote, so these findings are likely to change as the midterm elections near.

Despite similar topline results to fall 2025, a deeper dive reveals a substantial shift towards Democrats among young voters specifically. Young women in particular shifted significantly towards Democrats: The party has gained 17 points on margin among 18-22 year-old women, 10 points among women ages 23-29, and 17 points among women ages 30-34. 

Both men ages 23-29 and 30-34 shifted 14 points towards Democrats as well. But a notable exception is 18-22 year-old men, among which the Democrats’ margin fell by 1 point, despite this group’s evaluation of Trump growing more negative over the same period. This lack of a shift among men ages 18-22 comes as women ages 18-22 are the most Democratic gender-age group (D+44), evidence of a growing gender gap among the youngest members of Gen Z. As mentioned above, crosstabs at this level of granularity should be taken with a grain of salt.

In accordance with our findings from the fall, younger voters are more liberal than older voters, with majorities of those 18-22 (50%), 23-29 (51%), and 30-34 (54%) identifying as on the liberal side. Also consistent with our fall results, the youngest voters appear somewhat more conservative (especially more who identify as “slightly conservative”) and less moderate than other young voters.

When presented with several pairs of issues from a list of 30, voters selected “cost of living/affordability” most often (84%) as more important to their vote, followed by healthcare (75%), democracy (75%), and corruption (72%). Voters ages 18-34 held the same four priorities, with one additional one: housing. Voters care least about Israel and Palestine (28%), Ukraine and Russia (27%), China (27%), artificial intelligence (24%), acceptance of gay people (22%), and acceptance of transgender people (19%), despite the prominence of these issues in the news. Young voters (18-34) prioritized housing, K-12 education, higher education, abortion, climate change, acceptance of gay people, and acceptance of transgender people greater than 10 percentage points more often than the overall population.

Vance Leads 2028 GOP Primary; Democratic Primary Split By Age

Among a list of potential Republican candidates for president in 2028, only two receive more than 10% support. Vice President JD Vance leads the field, with 43% Republican support, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds a distant second at 17%.

Further down the field, Donald Trump Jr. receives 9% support, and Florida governor Ron DeSantis receives 6%. Vance is most popular with Republicans who self-identify as extremely conservative, with 62% of these voters supporting his potential candidacy while only 29% of self-described moderates back him. Notably, Republicans aged 18-22 were most likely to write in another candidate not on the given list (24%), compared to just 2% of Republicans ages 65 years and older who did so.

Despite his constitutional ineligibility for a third term, President Trump receives 47% support when included on a list of potential candidates for the 2028 Republican nomination. In this scenario, support for JD Vance and Marco Rubio drops to 18% and 8%, respectively. Republicans ages 18 to 22 were much less likely to back Trump, with only 22% supporting him compared to 47% overall.

Republicans view Vance as their most electable candidate in 2028 by a wide margin: Republicans chose him 83% of the time as more likely to win a general election against a Democrat, compared to 76% for Rubio and 74% for DeSantis. This dominance is larger among older Republicans than among younger ones (77% among 18-34s compared to 83% overall). Note that President Trump was not included in this question.

Several candidates show meaningful generational splits in perceived electability. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott has the largest youth penalty, chosen 54% of the time by Republicans overall but only 32% of the time among Republicans aged 18-34. In contrast, Texas governor Greg Abbott substantially outperforms his overall score among younger Republicans (66% among 18-34s vs. 49% overall), as do Tucker Carlson (47% vs. 36%), Steve Bannon (51% vs. 36%), and Kristi Noem (34% vs. 20%).

When it comes to general election strategy, just over 50% of Republicans believe that their party should focus on energizing its base with “conservative, America-first policies,” while about 30% think the party needs to moderate to appeal to a wider range of voters. About 20% of Republicans see no need to change much from 2024. Support for each Republican strategy remains relatively constant across all age cohorts. Among self-identified “extremely conservative” Republicans, 72% favor the base-energizing strategy and just 8% favor moderation. Among self-identified moderate Republicans, those numbers nearly flip: 51% favor moderation and 29% favor energizing the base. 

Support for moderation rises steadily with educational attainment, from 28% among Republican high school graduates without college degrees to 39% among Republicans with graduate or professional degrees. Republican men are more likely than Republican women to favor energizing the base (55% vs. 45%). Among the racial groups, Hispanic Republicans are most likely to favor the base-energizing strategy, whereas Black Republicans are most likely to favor moderation, although the sample size of Black and Hispanic Republicans are relatively small.

On the other side, the Democratic presidential primary is wide open, with former Vice President Kamala Harris (20%) and California governor Gavin Newsom (19%) essentially tied at the top, followed by former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (14%) and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (13%). Support varies sharply by age: younger voters (ages 18-34) favor Ocasio-Cortez (32%), followed by Harris (20%), while older voters (ages 65+) prefer Newsom (28%) and Buttigieg (19%).

Democratic voters on the whole picked Newsom (72%) and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly (70%) as most likely to win the general election against a Republican. No candidate was as dominant in perceptions of electability among 18-34-year-old Democrats, but Newsom still leads (65%), followed by Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz, though this may be an artifact of higher name recognition.

On electoral strategy, Democratic voters are nearly evenly split between prioritizing moderation to pick up swing voters (47%) and energizing the party’s base with progressive policies (45%), with only a small minority (7%) favoring continuity with the party’s 2024 approach. This divide is strongly correlated with age: Younger Democrats prefer a progressive strategy (56% among those ages 18-34), while older Democrats lean toward moderation.

In addition, Black (37%), Hispanic (39%), and female (41%) Democrats are less likely to prefer energizing the base by running on more progressive policies than white (48%), Asian (51%), and male (49%) Democrats.

Predictably, the vast majority (73%) of self-identified “extremely liberal” Democrats would like their party to focus on energizing the base, while a majority (56%) of moderate Democrats prefer a strategy of moderation. Unlike the fall 2025 poll, no clear educational divide emerges among Democrats on this question.

Voters Are Largely Skeptical About AI

Young adults (ages 18-34) are the most likely to report using any form of AI. Only 19% reported that they have never interacted with AI, compared to 41% of those age 65+ who said the same. Men were also more likely to report using AI to a greater extent than women, with 21% of men reporting that they use it daily compared to 16% of women.

AI usage is also very correlated with education, with the share of voters who report never using AI decreasing the more educated they become: 41% of those who have a high school or less education say they never use AI, compared to just 15% of those with a graduate or professional degree reporting the same. 

People’s knowledge of AI varies widely by product. While the majority of respondents report being unfamiliar with Anthrophic’s Claude (70%) and X’s Grok (62%), only 20% of people report being unfamiliar with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. These differences between companies are consistent across age groups, with younger voters being the most likely to report familiarity with these products and those ages 65+ being the least likely.

AI usage varies widely based on the specific task. Voters are most likely to use AI for everyday tasks, such as making meal plans, creating playlists, or writing emails (46%) and for work or academic purposes (45%). Respondents are far less likely to report talking to AI as they would to a friend (22%) or romantic partner (8%), using AI as a therapist (18%), or asking AI for advice on major life decisions (21%).

Just under a third of voters ages 18-34 (31%) and voters ages 35-44 (33%) have made major life decisions using advice from AI, compared to just 10% of voters over age 65, who are generally more hesitant to use AI for any of the polled situations. Notably, respondents ages 35-44 were most likely to have talked to AI as a friend (37%), including 19% who do so multiple times a week. AI usage for academic or work purposes rises as education increases, from 30% among voters without a high school diploma to 58% among voters with graduate or professional degrees.

The vast majority of voters believe that humans should perform all or most of the work in a variety of situations, including driving public transportation (83%), helping with K-12 learning (87%), filling out personal tax forms (68%), and making decisions regarding military combat (87%), patient care (88%), job hiring (84%), or government benefits eligibility (79%). In driving public transit and making decisions in military combat situations, the majority of voters (58% and 54%, respectively) rejected the use of any AI at all. In every situation polled, women were more likely than men to believe that humans should do all the work without any AI involvement. Plus, despite reporting higher levels of AI usage, younger voters (18-22) were sometimes more likely to reject the use of any AI compared to older respondents (65+), even when these groups agreed that AI should have minimal involvement. For instance, when it comes to helping K-12 students learn in the classroom, 58% of voters 18-22 believe humans should do all the work while only 38% of respondents 65+ believe AI should have no involvement.

We asked voters an open-ended question about who they believe will benefit most from AI. Across age and income, voters agree that “tech companies” are the greatest beneficiary of AI. Respondents also point to the wealthy as AI beneficiaries, using terms such as “wealthy,” “money,” “billionaires,” “rich,” “investors,” and “shareholders.”

Voters across demographics believe that AI will do the most harm to “workers” and the “environment.” Voters also believe that AI will harm the younger generation by referencing “children” and “students,” although students were also often mentioned as a beneficiary. Other frequently-mentioned terms are “artists,” “poor,” and “communities.” Finally, there are references to “common,” “everyday,” “average,” and “public,” indicating that many voters believe that everyday Americans will be harmed most by AI.

Both the youth sample and general population share similar opinions when it comes to the greatest risks posed by AI. Voters are most worried about AI-generated misinformation and about increased reliance on AI reducing independent thinking. However, young voters (18-34) are far more concerned about the environmental impacts of AI than the general population, among whom the environment is the second least concerning risk posed by AI adoption. Voters aged 18-34 place less emphasis than the overall sample on blue-collar worker displacement, sophisticated cyberattacks, and possible AI superintelligence. Across both groups, the issue of plagiarism and intellectual property theft are seen as relatively minor concerns compared to the other risks.

Across both the youth sample and the general population, the top four perceived benefits of AI are consistent: supporting people with disabilities, enabling breakthroughs in medicine and science, performing dangerous jobs, and facilitating real-time language translation. Both groups rank autonomous transportation and increased accessibility to artistic expression as the least important benefits.

Just 26% of voters agree that “the benefits of AI will outweigh the harms,” and even fewer (17%) believe that “AI can be trusted to adopt values that are beneficial for our society.” More educated voters are somewhat more optimistic about AI, as voters with graduate degrees and bachelor’s degrees were more likely to say that the benefits of AI will outweigh the harms (30% and 35%, respectively), compared to just 16% of voters without a high school diploma who say the same.

The general skepticism of AI has led to many questions about which bodies, if any, should be responsible for regulating AI. Voters are most likely to say that the federal government (61%) or AI companies themselves (54%) should be responsible for this regulation. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to support regulation from every possible regulator. Interestingly, younger voters (18-34) are significantly more likely to back regulation from international agencies (49%) than other age groups. A mere 4% say that AI should not be regulated at all.

Voters have mixed confidence levels in their ability to identify AI-generated text (41% extremely or somewhat confident), images (50% confident), videos (52% confident), and voices (44% confident). Notably, younger voters feel significantly more confident than older voters across all media. Voters aged 18-22 were most confident in their abilities: They were 21 percentage points more confident than voters overall about recognizing AI-generated text, 24 points more confident about recognizing images, 30 points more confident about recognizing videos, and 30 points more confident about recognizing voices.

We then presented respondents with four images of human faces. Two of the images were stock photos of real humans. Two were AI images of humans generated by Gemini AI. The respondents were asked for each photo if they believed the image was AI-generated or not AI-generated. Voters were not very successful in correctly identifying whether the images were real or not.

For AI images 1 and 2, respectively, 48% and 46% of voters correctly identified the photos as AI. For real images 1 and 2, respectively, 30% and 58% of voters correctly identified the images as real. Thus, for all but image 2, less than half of voters could correctly identify whether or not the image was AI-generated. Furthermore, voters who expressed more confidence in their abilities to recognize AI-generated images were no more successful than less confident respondents.

Voters Hold Negative Views of ICE, Executive Overreach

We presented voters with seven presidential powers that the Trump administration has asserted, two of which (vetoing bills and issuing executive orders) are clearly constitutional, and the rest of which are more controversial. Americans are largely skeptical that presidents should have these powers.

Majorities of voters disagreed that the president should have the authority to carry out military strikes without congressional approval (53%), exert control over independent financial regulatory agencies (55%), direct the Department of Justice to investigate political opponents (58%), cancel congressionally-approved funding without congressional approval (60%), or continue their administration’s policies in defiance of court rulings (67%), compared to much smaller proportions who agreed.

Still, substantial numbers of voters even opposed giving the president the authority to veto bills (28%) or issue executive orders (43%) — both of which are constitutional; see Article I, § 7 and Article II, § 1 — perhaps as a result of widespread disapproval of the Trump presidency.

Fewer than about 10% of Democrats agreed that presidents should be able to carry out any of the five more controversial powers, and only a minority agreed that presidents should have the authority to issue executive orders (19%) or veto bills (36%). On the other hand, 37% of Republicans believed that the President should be able to direct the Department of Justice to investigate political opponents, and 27% of Republicans agreed that presidents should be able to continue their administration’s policies after courts have ruled them unlawful. Even greater proportions of Republicans supported the other powers we tested: 65% of Republicans agreed that presidents should be able to carry out military strikes in other countries without congressional approval.

More than half of voters surveyed (57%) consider the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity — Trump v. United States (2024), in which the Court held that presidents have presumptive immunity for all official acts, even after leaving office — as dangerous due to the decision’s implications for abuses of power. About a third (34%) of respondents view the decision as necessary to protect the president’s ability to act without fear of politically motivated persecution. Younger voters are especially opposed to the Court’s presidential immunity ruling, with 75% of voters aged 18-34 viewing it as dangerous.

The poll presented voters with several situations and asked whether each constituted political violence. 

• Physical acts received the greatest consensus, with 83% of respondents backing the notion that “beating someone up because of their political views” constitutes political violence and 81% believing the same about property destruction. 
• Views on non-physical actions were more divided: 57% consider trying to get someone fired for their views as political violence, while 45% classify each of ripping down political posters or using racial or religious slurs to insult someone as such. 
• Rhetorical actions were least likely to be considered political violence. Only 30% described calling political opponents “fascist” or “authoritarian” as political violence, and just 27% said the same about shouting at a political speaker.

Younger respondents (ages 18-34) were generally less likely than older respondents to categorize non-physical actions as political violence.

Voters perceive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) less favorably than other law enforcement agencies, such as the police. A strong majority (67%) agrees that police make them feel safer, with 37% strongly agreeing. In contrast, attitudes toward ICE are much more negative: only 38% of voters agree that ICE makes them feel safer, while 48% disagree, including 39% who strongly disagree. 

• Democrats overwhelmingly disagree that ICE makes them feel safer (84%), and Republicans largely agree (71%), making this issue more ideologically polarized than views on local police, where Republicans are still more likely to feel safer, but by a lesser margin.
• Black voters are far less likely to say that either police or ICE make them feel safer and instead show a higher tendency to express neutrality or disagreement.
• Older respondents, especially those 65+, are much more likely to strongly agree that police make them feel safer and be relatively more supportive of ICE, while younger adults are more likely to disagree that either police or ICE make them feel safer in their communities.

Voters are divided about what to do about the ICE budget moving forward. Half of voters (50%) support reducing the ICE budget (23%) or eliminating it entirely (27%), while 42% prefer maintaining (21%) or increasing (21%) it.

• Younger voters are much more skeptical of ICE, with 68% of voters ages 18-34 hoping to eliminate (44%) or reduce (24%) ICE’s budget.
• A predictable partisan gap emerges on this question, with 88% of Democrats backing elimination or reduction of the ICE budget and 79% of Republicans expressing support for maintaining or increasing it.

Political scientists Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan have found that politicians often use “administrative burden” as a strategy to discourage certain activities, such as voting or accessing government benefits. Amid renewed federal efforts to restrict access to Medicaid and voting, we sought to collect more data on public opinions of this type of effort. We split the sample into three groups to independently test these opinions in three different contexts: government benefits, voting, and guns.

Just under half (45%) of voters believe that “the government has too much paperwork and too many requirements for people to access benefit programs like food assistance and health insurance,” compared to 34% of voters who think there are too few requirements and paperwork. 

However, when asked a question about the amount of paperwork and requirements needed to register to vote, 43% of voters say there are too few requirements, while 31% say there are too many.

When asked a question about the amount of paperwork and requirements needed to purchase a gun, a majority of voters (58%) say there are too few requirements, while only 20% say there are too many.

Herd and Moynihan also find significant psychological costs associated with applying for and participating in government programs targeted to help low-income individuals but found less of a stigma surrounding government programs of a more universal nature, such as Social Security.

Our research corroborates this finding, as voters reported that they would be more comfortable telling friends and family they are receiving Social Security benefits (78%) than Medicaid (58%) or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits (44%). This question also split the sample into three groups to test each program independently.

Notably, a plurality of voters reported that they would feel uncomfortable telling friends and family that they are receiving SNAP benefits (45%), whereas voters were much less likely to report feeling uncomfortable sharing that they are receiving Medicaid (28%) and Social Security benefits (11%).

When asked about the political views of their parents at the time they were teenagers, voters’ two most common responses were that their parents were conservative (24%) or moderate (23%). A notable racial gap appeared, with Black voters most likely to identify their parents as liberal (20%) or moderate (36%) and with Hispanic voters most likely to identify their parents as conservative (32%). In addition, most voters placed themselves very near their parents on the seven-point ideology scale, and being more liberal than their parents was much more common than being more conservative.

Overall, voters are pessimistic about their own influence on politics, with nearly three-quarters (75%) saying ordinary people have either a little (46%) or no influence (29%) on government policy, and only 5% believing people have “a lot” of influence. 

• This skepticism is fairly consistent across demographic groups, though Black respondents are relatively more polarized, being equally likely to say “no influence” (34%) and “a little influence” (34%), but also more likely than others to say “a lot of influence” (10%). 
• Independents and those outside the two major parties are especially pessimistic, with about half (51% of Independents, 56% of Others) saying ordinary people have “no influence” on government policies, compared to roughly a quarter of Democrats (27%) and Republicans (28%). 
• While “a little influence” remains the dominant response across age groups, younger adults are slightly less likely to say people have no influence on government policies and somewhat more likely to perceive some degree of political efficacy.

Young Voters Remain Most Likely to Express Antisemitic Beliefs

Building on the work of our fall 2025 poll, we tested three statements commonly considered to be antisemitic, which were inspired by a series of papers by political scientists Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden:

1. Jews in the United States are more loyal to Israel than to America. 
2. It’s appropriate to boycott Jewish American-owned businesses to protest the war in Gaza.
3. Jews in the United States have too much power.

Similar to the fall, most voters (67%) agreed with zero of the three statements, though some agreed with one (17%), two (9%), or even all three (6%). 

• Younger voters were again more likely to agree with these statements: 10% of voters ages 18-34 agreed with all three statements, compared to just 2% of voters ages 65 and above. 
• A racial gap emerged as well. Black voters were most likely to agree with at least one statement (46%), followed by Asian (39%) and Hispanic (37%) voters, while the same was true of 29% of white voters. 
• Among the seven ideological groups surveyed, self-identified moderates were the most likely to agree with at least one statement (37%), while little variation emerged between liberals and conservatives. This finding differs from the fall results, which showed no similar ideological trend.

This spring, the poll also asked respondents for the sources from which they get their news, allowing us to look at agreement with the three antisemitic statements based on preferred news platforms. 

Voters who receive their news from TikTok (41%), Instagram (39%), X (38%), and Reddit (39%) were most likely to agree with at least one of the statements, whereas voters who get their news from television, newspapers, or news websites were least likely to agree with any statements.

The poll also asked about general perceptions of antisemitism. Overall, 63% of voters agreed that “antisemitism is a serious problem in the United States today,” but a significant age gap emerged: Just 55% of voters aged 18-34 agreed that antisemitism is a serious problem, compared to 78% of respondents aged 65+. Black, Asian, and Hispanic respondents were also notably less likely to agree (46%, 54%, and 58%, respectively) than their white counterparts (68%).

Interestingly, voters at the ideological extremes (75% of “extremely liberal” voters and 71% of “extremely conservative” voters) were much more likely to agree that antisemitism is a serious problem than those who self-identified as moderate (52%). While they do not necessarily align with our findings on some other questions (which have found the highest rates of antisemitic views among young conservatives), these results are particularly interesting in the context of political scientist Jeffrey Cohen’s finding that “ideological moderates” and “those lacking an ideological orientation” may be most likely to hold antisemitic sentiments. Then again, given the substantial proportion of moderates (36%) who did not agree or disagree, another interpretation is that moderates may just be less willing to take stances on issues.

According to FBI hate crime statistics, Jewish Americans face the second greatest number of hate crimes of any group in the United States, following only Black Americans. However, just 40% of voters agreed with the statement that “Jewish Americans face more hate crimes than almost every other demographic group in the United States.” Most strikingly, only 15% of voters aged 18-34 agreed.

We also tested two conspiracy-related antisemitic statements. The first aimed to measure the prevalence of the antisemitic “Great Replacement Theory” by asking voters the extent to which they agree or disagree that “Jews are promoting nonwhite immigration to reduce the power of white Americans in American politics and culture.” Most voters (57%) rejected this statement, though a large portion neither agreed nor disagreed (34%). Still, 9% agreed, including 11% of Republicans and 6% of Democrats. An education gap emerged here too: Those with a graduate or bachelor’s degree were less likely to agree with this statement (5%) than those without these degrees (10-13%).

The second antisemitic conspiracy we tested was that “Jews have an extremely organized international community that puts their own interests before those of their home countries.” This statement was paraphrased from far-right political commentator Nick Fuentes. About a quarter (25%) of voters agreed with this statement, and just 32% disagreed, with the remaining plurality (43%) declining to agree or disagree. Similar generational and racial divides appear in this question as previous ones. Hispanic (36%), Black (32%), and Asian (26%) voters were more likely to agree than white voters (22%), and voters ages 18-34 (29%) were more likely to agree than voters ages 65 and above (17%).

The survey also asked voters for their opinions on the following statements regarding the Holocaust:

• Public schools should be required to teach about the Holocaust in world history classes. (82% agree)
• People exaggerate how bad the Holocaust actually was. (6% agree)
• Jews should move on from the Holocaust. (17% agree)
• Something like the Holocaust could happen again to Jews today. (47% agree)
• Jews were partially responsible for the Holocaust. (6% agree)

Agreement that “public schools should be required to teach about the Holocaust in world history classes” was more common among voters with a bachelor’s or graduate degree (89% and 92%, respectively) than voters without a high school diploma (61%). At 71%, self-described moderates were the least likely to agree among the ideological groups.

Black voters (9%), Hispanic voters (11%), and voters aged 18-22 (11%) were somewhat more likely to agree that “people exaggerate how bad the Holocaust actually was” than white voters (4%), Asian voters (4%), and voters aged 65+ (2%). Similarly, voters aged 18-34 (8%), Black voters (10%), Hispanic voters (9%), and voters without a high school diploma (13%) were more likely to believe that “Jews were partially responsible for the Holocaust,” while only 1% of voters aged 65+, 3% of Asian voters, 4% of white voters, and 3% of voters with at least a bachelor’s degree agreed.

Young voters were also less likely to believe that “something like the Holocaust could happen again to Jews today,” as just 38% of 18-22 voters agreed, compared to 52% of voters aged 65+. Black voters (36%), Asian voters (36%), Hispanic voters (40%), voters without a high school diploma (39%), high school graduates (40%), moderate voters (41%), and slightly conservative voters (39%) were similarly less likely to agree, compared to white voters (51%), voters with bachelor’s degrees (52%), voters with graduate degrees (61%), extremely liberal voters (65%), and extremely conservative voters (59%).

About 27% of voters believe that “the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation,” and about 31% believe that “being Christian is an important part of being truly American.” Given the American tradition of religious liberty, it is perhaps particularly striking that only 51% and 46% disagree with these statements, respectively. This Christian nationalism comes primarily from the Republican side: 45% and 49% of Republicans agreed with the respective statements, compared to just 8% and 13% of Democrats. For these questions, older and middle-aged voters were more likely to agree with these statements: Just 16% of voters ages 18-34 support declaring America a Christian nation, and 17% believe that being Christian is important for being truly American, compared to 27% and 31% overall.

The survey also broke the sample into two randomly-assigned groups. The first group was asked the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with each of the following statements:

• Wealthy donors have too much control over American politics.
• Wealthy donors prioritize their own interests over American ones.
• Wealthy donors prioritize the interests of other countries over American interests.

The second group was asked the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with each of the following statements:

• Wealthy Jewish donors have too much control over American politics.
• Wealthy Jewish donors prioritize their own interests over American ones.
• Wealthy Jewish donors prioritize the interests of Israel over American interests.

The purpose of this split-sample question was to determine whether voters distinguish between perceptions of wealthy donors in general and wealthy Jewish donors.

Large majorities agreed that “wealthy donors have too much control over American politics” (83%) and that “wealthy donors prioritize their own interests over American ones” (84%), but most voters were hesitant to single out wealthy Jewish donors. About 29% agreed that “wealthy Jewish donors have too much control over American politics,” and about 36% agreed that “wealthy Jewish donors prioritize their own interests over American ones,” but, in both questions, a plurality (41%) declined to take a side, selecting “neither agree nor disagree.”

On the question of loyalty to other countries, 54% agreed that “wealthy donors prioritize the interests of other countries over American interests,” but only 34% agreed that “wealthy Jewish donors prioritize the interests of Israel over American interests,” although 43% neither agreed nor disagreed. 

The poll included another experiment where the sample was randomly split into three groups. The first group was asked about how Israel’s actions in Gaza have affected their views of Jewish people, the second group was asked about how Israel’s actions in Gaza have affected their views of Israeli people, and the third about how Israel’s actions have affected their views of Israel. The goal was to test whether voters conflate Israel’s actions with the Jewish community more generally, while having a baseline of how Israel’s actions have affected people’s views of Israel itself, as well as of the Israeli people. 

The results showed that most voters do not conflate Israel’s actions with Jewish people more generally: 58% of voters said that “Israel’s actions in Gaza have had no effect on my views of Jewish people.” A smaller portion (43%) said the same about Israeli people, and less than a third (30%) said the same about Israel itself. That said, a quarter (25%) of voters did, in fact, conflate Israel’s actions with the Jewish people more generally, with 9% expressing a positive shift in their views of Jewish people and 16% expressing a negative shift.

We presented respondents with six statements about Israel and the American-Israeli relationship spanning the political spectrum. These statements were paraphrased or taken directly from Nick Fuentes, Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, Ritchie Torres, Chuck Schumer, and Rashida Tlaib. 

The only statement to receive support from a majority of respondents was Schumer’s position (59%) that “Israel is a democracy and the safe haven of the Jewish people, but they have a moral obligation to ensure humanitarian treatment of Palestinian civilians.” While 66% of Democrats strongly or somewhat agreed with this statement, a notable 55% of Republicans agreed as well, making it the most popular position across both parties. 

In addition, a slight majority (52%) of Democrats agreed with Tlaib that “Israel is an apartheid state, engaging in racist oppression against Palestinians,” including 77% of self-identified “extremely liberal” voters, 58% of self-identified “liberal” voters, and 46% of “slightly liberal” voters.  

Note that many voters were hesitant to take a position at all: About 30-40% of respondents for each statement selected “Neither agree nor disagree.”

A substantial age gradient emerges with these statements. As the age of the respondents increases, they are less likely to agree with the two strongly anti-Israel statements (those from Fuentes and Tlaib) and more likely to agree with the others. Notably, 54% of voters ages 18-34 believe that “Israel is an apartheid state,” compared to just 34% of voters overall, highlighting a key generational divide.

It is worth a reminder that voters still ranked “Israel and Palestine” as a relatively low-priority issue, with just 28% choosing it as more important than another randomly-selected issue from our list. This figure remained at 28% among both Democrats and Republicans. Young voters were more likely to prioritize Israel and Palestine, with young Democrats selecting it 38% of the time and young Republicans doing so 36% of the time. Interestingly, the divide is more by age than by party.

The antisemitism research section included one more split, asking half of the sample the extent to which they agreed or disagreed that “the interests of Jews come at the expense of white people” and asking the other half the extent to which they agreed or disagreed that “the interests of Jews come at the expense of people of color.” The question was designed to investigate both right-wing and left-wing racial narratives about the Jewish community, and we chose to split the sample to avoid voters’ answers to one statement being influenced by also needing to respond to the other statement.

Overall, 11% of voters agreed that the interests of Jews come at the expense of white people, while 13% said the same about coming at the expense of people of color. Young voters (18-34) were more likely to agree with both statements (16% and 18%, respectively). Interestingly, Black voters were the most likely racial group to agree that the interests of Jews come at the expense of white people (15%), compared to 10% of white voters. On the question of whether the interests of Jews come at the expense of people of color, over a quarter of Black voters agreed (27%), followed by 20% of Asian voters and 20% of Hispanic voters, while 8% of white voters agreed. No partisan divide appeared on the question of the interests of white people (10% each of Democrats and Republicans agreed), and moderates were the most likely ideological group to agree (15%). However, Democrats were more likely to say that the interests of Jews come at the expense of people of color than Republicans (18% versus 8%). 

When asked about the role of Jews in “programs that encourage diversity, educate about and combat discrimination, accommodate different types of people, and work to create inclusive environments,” a plurality of respondents (33%) believed that “these programs should include Jews the same amount as they do right now.” Some voters (18%) believed that “these programs should not exist” entirely, including 31% of Republicans and a mere 3% of Democrats. Just 13% said that “these programs should do more to include Jews than they do right now,” while 11% said that “these programs should focus on more marginalized communities rather than Jews.” A quarter of respondents (25%) were “not sure,” especially those without high school diplomas (43%).

However, some groups were much more likely to say that diversity programs should focus on more marginalized communities rather than Jews, though the proportions who took this position remained relatively small. These groups included voters aged 18-34 (17%), Black voters (18%), Hispanic voters (16%), Asian voters (16%), extremely liberal voters (24%), liberal voters (17%), and slightly liberal voters (16%). Interestingly, among the racial groups, Black voters were both the most likely to say that diversity programs should do more to include Jews (16%) and the most likely to say that these programs should focus on more marginalized communities instead (18%).

Literature Reviews

Before writing questions about artificial intelligence, executive power, and antisemitism, the Yale Youth Poll team conducted a literature review of existing research on public opinion on these issues. This preliminary research helps us identify gaps in the literature that our survey could fill, as well as re-examine past findings in the context of 2026. Below are summaries of some relevant research in each of the fields we surveyed in this poll.

Literature Reviews

ABOUT THIS SURVEY

The Yale Youth Poll surveyed an online sample of 3,429 registered voters from 3/9/2026 to 3/23/2026, with an under-35 oversample of 2,008. ​​The survey was conducted in English, and its post-weighting 95% CI margin of error is ±1.4 percentage points for the full sample and ±2.0 percentage points for the youth sample; a full breakdown of MOE by demographic group can be found here. Full toplines and crosstabs can be found here. A full list of questions can be found here.

Fielding was done by Verasight, and results were weighted by age interacted with gender, as well as education, sex, race, and party ID. Note that this weighting is slightly different from fall 2025 because, unlike in the fall, the interaction was necessary to avoid having age buckets skew heavily towards one gender. The crosstabs for all demographics display the weighted numbers and percentages.

ABOUT THE YALE YOUTH POLL

The Yale Youth Poll is an undergraduate-led research organization. During the 2024-2025 academic year, the Yale Youth Poll received funding from the Democratic Innovations Program at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies. For the 2025-2026 academic year, the Yale Youth Poll has received funding from the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism and programmatic support from Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

The Yale Youth Poll operates with complete editorial and methodological independence. All polling activities, including questionnaire development, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of results, are conducted entirely by the undergraduate students behind the Yale Youth Poll. The findings and conclusions presented on this website and on our Substack reflect solely the work and analysis of the Yale Youth Poll and do not constitute an official position of, nor are they endorsed by, the Democratic Innovations program, the ISPS, the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, or Yale University.

We would like to thank Professor Josh Kalla for his help getting this project off the ground and his feedback as we crafted this survey, along with Professor Linda Maizels and Professor Maurice Samuels from the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism. Any errors are our own. 

YALE YOUTH POLL STAFF

Steering Committee

Jack Dozier, Director

Karla Cortes, Deputy Director 

Sofia Beck, Head of Communications

Daniel Wang, Head of Data 

Aharon Shelef, Head of Research 

Research Team Leads

Sonja Aibel, Democracy & Institutions

Kathleen Doyle, Artificial Intelligence & Technology

Jason Lampert, The Study of Antisemitism 

Associates

Julia Clauson, Democracy & Institutions (Communications)

Nicole Manning, Artificial Intelligence & Technology

Analysts

Maya Geller, Artificial Intelligence & Technology

Mia Gorlick, Democracy & Institutions

Yenjay Hu, Democracy & Institutions

Oliver Hungs, The Study of Antisemitism 

Mary Jackson, Artificial Intelligence & Technology

Robert Kirkwood, Artificial Intelligence & Technology

Holden Lee, The Study of Antisemitism 

Kenisha Mahajan, Democracy & Institutions

Advaith Nair, The Study of Antisemitism 

Joseph Or, Artificial Intelligence & Technology

Sasha Ranis, Democracy & Institutions

Suraj Shah, Democracy & Institutions

Elias Vlastos, Artificial Intelligence & Technology

Teddy Witt, The Study of Antisemitism 

Via Wang, Artificial Intelligence & Technology

Advisors & Alumni

Milan Singh

Zachary Donnini

Liam Richardson

Matthew Quintos

Arjun Warrior

Visit our website, subscribe to our Substack, and follow us on X for more information and regular polling updates. Questions can be directed to yyp.media@elilists.yale.edu.