With the 2022 midterm elections mere weeks away, gender differences have become a regular talking point with numerous stories of women swinging toward the Democratic Party since the recent Dobbs v Jackson Supreme Court decision. According to AEI scholar Daniel Cox, “young female voters prefer the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate by more than a 20-point margin (43 percent vs. 19 percent), while young male voters are evenly divided in their support for Republican and Democratic candidates (34 percent vs. 34 percent).” Women’s voter registration is now surging, so understanding the political implications and potential impacts of this in the upcoming elections is valuable. Contrary to the headlines, there is more agreement on the nation’s future than some suggest.

College Pulse’s new Future of Politics survey queried 1,500 undergraduate students at 91 colleges and universities at the end of summer break. This work provides additional insight into how gender differences may impact political outcomes as members of the nation’s now maturing “Gen Z” are coming online politically and are looking to engage.

Outside of party identification and vote intention, the Future of Politics survey reveals a real gender difference when asked about the direction of the two major political parties. Nearly six in 10 women (59 percent) believe that the GOP is moving in the wrong direction compared to over four in 10 men (43 percent). For the Democratic Party, the inverse relationship emerges: 61 percent of men and 47 percent of women assert that the Democratic Party is moving in the wrong direction. It is no surprise that when asked if students could see themselves registering as Republicans or Democrats in the next decade, nearly two-thirds of men (64 percent) could see themselves registering for the GOP while just 43 percent of women felt the same way. While 48 percent of men could see themselves as Democrats in the next 10 years, 65 percent of women feel the same—a 17-point gap.

While there is a real and significant difference in how men and women currently see the political parties, gender gaps disappear almost entirely when asked about democratic health. Eighty-four percent of men and 77 percent of women say that a threat to democracy exists in the United States. It should be no surprise, then, that 78 percent of women and 71 percent of men assert that the United States is headed in the wrong direction.

Large majorities of men and women—59 percent and 66 percent, respectively—believe that the United States is currently too politically divided to solve its problems. Relatedly, even when students are asked to consider their party of choice and the question of how well their preferred party is aligned with their beliefs and represents their needs and interests, only small minorities report that the parties are very well aligned. Just 15 percent of men and 13 percent of women think that the party they support actually represents them and their interests very well. Likewise, 73 percent of men and 76 percent of women believe that those who run for public office are not the right kind of people. This is disheartening to report and strikes at the heart of hope for American progress.

Despite this less-than-positive outlook about parties and the political system, however, there remains optimism for the political future of the United States. Many college and university students think that better people will run for office in the coming years. Fifty-nine percent of men and 61 percent of women state that they believe that better people will run for office in the coming years. Moreover, they still believe in the power of the ballot box and have not accepted that money and social media itself may decide the nation’s future. When asked if voting lets people like you make a difference in how government works or if voting does not make a difference in the nation’s direction, almost six in 10 students (58 percent) believe that voting still matters. When gender is considered, equal numbers of both men and women hold that voting still matters (59 percent) and efficacy is still very much present in our Gen Z college and university students.

Although college men and women are divided over political parties, they are unified in the belief that the nation is heading down the wrong path, but that being politically engaged still matters. The implications of this are very real. Political parties should recognize that Gen Z students want to participate politically and have not been turned off as a group. However, who Gen Zers will support will vary significantly based on gender—a characteristic that has ebbed and flowed over many past elections—and thus gender may be the driving source of voter choice and a significant demographic cleavage for many future elections to come.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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