The Focus Group Podcast

S6 Ep23: Young Trump Voters Have Feelings
Host: Sarah Longwell
Guest: Rachel Janfaza
Date: February 7, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores the views and lived experiences of Gen Z voters who supported Donald Trump, with a special look at young women in this group—a demographic that defies the conventional narrative of Gen Z trending left. Host Sarah Longwell and guest Rachel Janfaza—both seasoned focus group facilitators—discuss themes of economic anxiety, foreign policy, authenticity in political figures, gender gaps, and their impact on dating and social identity among young voters. The conversation is laced with audio clips from recent focus groups, offering authentic, unfiltered perspectives from young Trump voters.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Gen Z Political Priorities: Economy, Affordability, and AI

• Interconnected Economic Concerns: Affordability isn't just about jobs. Gen Z frames almost every political issue—housing, healthcare, AI, education, and climate—through the lens of whether they can afford to live and plan for the future.

  • Rachel Janfaza (03:59): “The economy, affordability, cost of living is the number one issue for young people as well... All of these issues are interconnected.”
  • Sarah Longwell (05:30): “It’s about housing, it is about the cost of health care, it is about your electricity bill, it is about the cost of college and whether or not you can afford it...”

• AI and Job Anxiety: Contrary to expectations, Gen Z isn't uniformly bullish about AI. Many worry about their education and career prospects being rendered obsolete by rapid technological change.

  • Rachel Janfaza (03:59): “Gen Z is not AI fluent... they don't feel very confident in their ability to navigate it, but also they're very scared about what it's doing...”

Foreign Policy & "America First" Skepticism

[07:04–14:46]

• Discomfort with Foreign Entanglement: Many young Trump voters (especially women) express skepticism about U.S. involvement in global conflicts, perceiving interventions as distractions from urgent domestic needs.

  • Focus group participant (08:12): “It just seems like we're just getting into this war with Iran on behalf of Israel. That doesn't benefit us, and I don’t think that’s a good thing for us to do.”

• Split Within the Right: Rachel describes an emerging schism between "America First" isolationists (influenced by figures like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene) and the GOP’s more traditionally interventionist "MAGA establishment."

  • Rachel Janfaza (12:57): “There's more of the young men who are listening to people like Tucker Carlson or Nick Fuentes versus more of that... more hard line traditional foreign policy posture...”
  • Sarah Longwell (11:14): “America first for people isn't a slogan. It's a statement of prioritization.”

• Draft Anxiety: Fear of being personally impacted (through the draft) makes the peace/war question deeply salient for Gen Z, motivating their aversion to foreign conflicts.

Authenticity and Political Figures: The Case of J.D. Vance

[14:46–23:02]

• Younger Voters Skeptical of Vance: Both Gen Z men and women show a notable lack of enthusiasm for J.D. Vance, Trump’s Vice President, finding him inauthentic or simply “weird.”

  • Focus group participant (15:45): “I just haven't seen him do really anything... I'm not really a huge fan of him.”
  • Focus group participant (16:03): “He just seems kind of weird to me and I don't really trust him.”

• 'Flip Flopping' as a Red Flag: Young voters, while themselves ideologically fluid, view Vance’s shifts in allegiance (from anti-Trump to Trump loyalist) as inauthentic, not merely pragmatic.

  • Focus group participant (17:24): “I don't like people that sort of flip flop their views on things.”

• Media Exposure Backfires: Increased visibility on national stages and “manosphere” podcasts seems to reduce rather than increase affinity, particularly due to outdated cultural attitudes and awkward personal style.

  • Sarah Longwell (19:48): “He doesn't have enough exposure to be sort of everywhere, but he has enough exposure that everyone's getting like a flavor of him. And they're all like, I don't know, this guy's lame and weird and bizarre.”

Gender Gaps & Group Norms

[31:08–44:49]

• Peer Pressure and Groupthink: Women discuss intense social pressure within liberal college communities to conform; conservative women may face pressure in relationships and families to hold certain values.

  • Focus group participant (31:47): “It’s almost like you have to follow these ideologies to do well and to be accepted socially.”
  • Rachel Janfaza (35:30): “I think it’s less of a peer pressure and more of a group think... It's actually, I think, more times about the policies and about the issues.”

• Men’s Social Pressures: Conversely, young men may feel it’s “uncool” to admit liberal leanings amid peer groups, further polarizing the gender gap.

  • Rachel Janfaza (37:24): “...in 2024, there was a social pressure amongst young men to not be a Democrat... it goes both ways.”

• Everyday Sexism & Political Identity: Both men and women describe a normalized, sometimes hostile, gender dynamic reflected in dating and politics.

  • Focus group participant (33:57): “I do feel like Gen Z. Men can be, like, kind of sexist and...degraded or insulting to women...”

• Relational vs. Political Divide: The gender gap on political views is rooted as much in the way young people relate to each other, and the lived experience of gender, as in ideology or policy.

  • Rachel Janfaza (43:44): “...the gender gap is seen as this political thing, but it’s not political. It’s tied to every part of our lives, and it’s more relational than it is political.”

Dating Across the Divide

[46:51–53:56]

• Polarization in Relationships: Conservative women describe reluctance to date liberals, often due to family or faith expectations. Liberal women similarly report avoiding conservative men, seeing values as incompatible.

  • Focus group participant (47:16): “I just don't think it's possible to date someone like that doesn't share the same values with you... I just don't think it would ever work.”

• Supply-Demand Imbalance: Conservative women have plenty of dating options within their politics, while conservative men may need to consider dating across the aisle due to the numerical predominance of liberal women.

  • Rachel Janfaza (49:19): “...these women don't have to be open to dating across the political divide because there's plenty of conservative dudes out there...conservative men might have to date a liberal woman...”

• Are Values Really So Fixed?: Despite rhetoric of deep values misalignment, both Sarah and Rachel argue that political affiliations and actual values are still quite fluid for Gen Z.

  • Rachel Janfaza (52:26): “I don't think that the mismatch of values is actually as clear as it might seem. And I don't think that it's black and white...the political leaning is way more fluid than we make it out to be.”

Gen Z Men, Trump, and the Democratic Party

[56:11–62:05]

• How Gen Z Men See Themselves: Many young men frame their politics around traditional values—faith, family, economic freedom—not pure Trump loyalty. There’s a sense of abandonment by the Democratic Party, which these men see as focused on “gender politics” and less on issues they care about.

  • Focus group participant (57:30): “I think young men have felt, myself included, felt kind of pushed to the wayside and, like, not important to the Democratic Party...”
  • Rachel Janfaza (59:42): “If Democrats can get their messaging right on those three things...there's no saying that these young men are still voting for Republicans.”

• Democratic Opportunity: Issues like faith, family, and capitalism have at different times belonged to both parties, and could again.

  • Rachel Janfaza (59:42): “...the role of family is really important and has been ceded to the right. I think the role of religion is really important and has been ceded to the right...”

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Economic Anxiety:
  • “Young people...see many of the other political issues through the lens of affordability.”
    – Rachel Janfaza (04:00)
• Foreign Policy Skepticism:
  • “Why are we focusing on these crises abroad when we clearly have our own issues here at home?”
    – Rachel Janfaza (09:54)
• Authenticity & Vance:
  • “I don't think he's very authentic and I think young people read right through that.”
    – Rachel Janfaza (18:46)
• Gender Gap & Social Influence:
  • “Does the same thing not go for the young men where maybe it's just that young men are more on the right because that's like the cool thing for young men right now?”
    – Rachel Janfaza (37:24)
• Dating & Identity:
  • “...these women don't have to be open to dating across the political divide because there's plenty of conservative dudes out there...”
    – Rachel Janfaza (49:19)
• Values Fluidity:
  • “...the mismatch of values is actually as clear as it might seem. And I don't think that it's black and white...the political leaning is way more fluid than we make it out to be.”
    – Rachel Janfaza (52:26)

Memorable Moments

• Gen Z’s approach to politics as vibe-based rather than ideologically rigid; a “fluid” and reactionary voting bloc.
  • Rachel Janfaza (27:19): “Gen Z flip flops all the time...Are Gen Z's politics just going to be reactionary because of that?”
• Surprise at Marco Rubio as a “steady” figure for Gen Z, who lack reference for pre-Trump GOP politics.
  • Sarah Longwell (25:28): “They don't remember the Republican Party that I do...There is an appetite...for Marco Rubio. I am starting to see this all over the groups and it is...too bizarre, but it is a real thing.”
• Personal and cultural dissonance about gender and dating; authenticity rules Gen Z’s perceptions of politicians and partners alike.

The Takeaway

The future of the right—and Gen Z’s political alignment—is far from settled. Despite a surge of young men into the Trump coalition, the group remains wary of inauthenticity and uninterested in ideological purity. They value economic security and stability above all, are reluctant to support political figures who don’t feel “real,” and experience politics as an intensely relational and social process. As Sarah and Rachel demonstrate through focus group insights, the next generation’s defining feature may be its openness to change and its insistence on lived, authentic experience.