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By Sam Stevenson
Associate News Editor
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President Donald Trump’s approval rating has “fallen off a cliff with Generation Z,” according to CNN’s chief data analyst.
Speaking on air on Wednesday, Harry Enten pointed to CBS News data showing it has fallen from +10 points one month into the administration in February 2025 to -32 points today.
Newsweek contacted the White House via email for comment outside of regular business hours.
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Why It Matters
Gen Z, made up of those born between 1997 and 2012, played a pivotal role in the 2024 election when Trump improved his margin with young voters and returned to the White House.
Less than a year later, data shows his support from this influential demographic has dropped precipitously, raising questions about the Republican Party’s hold on younger voters and the future of U.S. electoral dynamics.
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What To Know
Trump’s sharp decline in approval among Generation Z signals a major shift in the American political landscape.
The president was polling strongly with younger voters just weeks after returning to the White House for a second term, with his net approval rating (the percentage of those who approve minus those who disapprove) standing at +10 points, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll, which surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,175 U.S. adults between February 5 and 7, 2025.
Results were weighted by gender, age, race, education, and 2024 presidential vote using U.S. Census benchmarks to reflect the broader population. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.5 points.
Trump’s net approval rating among young voters has since collapsed to minus 32 points, according to a separate CBS News/YouGov survey, which polled 2,325 U.S. adults between January 5-7 last week, with a plus or minus 2.4 percent margin of error.
Commenting on the findings, CNN’s Enten said: “Look at this. Falling off that cliff. That is a drop of 42 points.
“My goodness gracious! This, as I said, is a very swingy group and it has swung very much away from Donald John Trump.”
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Enten also cited polling from Gallup, which shows more Gen Z Americans now identify as Democrats (or lean toward it).
In 2024, these voters identified with—or leaned toward—Democrats over Republicans by six points.
By 2025, that gap had widened sharply to 20 points, which Enten described as the biggest shift of any group.
He noted that while the overall electorate also moved, this increase was more than double the change seen nationwide and represented a significant swing toward Democrats.
“That was, in fact, the largest shift—considerably more so than any other group,” Enten said.
Pew Research Center data showed that in the 2024 election, Trump received 39 percent of the aged 18-29 or Gen Z vote—an improvement over his 2020 (35 percent) and 2016 (28 percent) performances.
Although he trailed former Vice President Kamala Harris by 19 points, this surge helped secure his return to office.
Economic anxiety, rising costs of living, and skepticism over policy fixes are cited as central reasons for the shift in Trump’s approval rating with Gen Z voters.
An AP-NORC poll from December 2025 of 1,146 adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, found that 67 percent of U.S. adults—across all age groups—disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy, with only 31 percent approving.
This marked a worsening perception since March 2025, when 58 percent disapproved and 40 percent approved.
Meanwhile, only 26 percent of Gen Z voters approved of Trump’s handling of the economy in an Economist/YouGov poll of 1,551 U.S. adults conducted between January 2-5 this year, with a plus or minus 3.3 percent margin of error.
What People Are Saying
In remarks to the Detroit Economic Club, Trump said the U.S. had experienced “the strongest and fastest economic turnaround in our country’s history.”
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Newsweek in a statement this month: "President Trump was overwhelmingly elected by nearly 80 million Americans to deliver on his popular and commonsense agenda. The president has already made historic progress not only in America but around the world. It is not surprising that President Trump remains the most dominant figure in American politics."
White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Newsweek last month: "President Trump and every member of his Administration are clear-eyed about the fact that Americans continue to reel from the lingering effects of Joe Biden’s generational economic crisis.
"Turning the Biden economic disaster around has informed nearly every action the Trump administration has taken since Day One, from unleashing American energy to cut gas prices to signing historic drug pricing deals to cut costs for American patients.
"Much work remains, and every member of the Trump administration continues to focus on recreating the historic job, wage, and economic growth that Americans enjoyed during President Trump’s first term."
Pollster John Della Volpe told The Rebuild: “Young Americans are sending a clear message: the systems and institutions meant to support them no longer feel stable, fair, or responsive.”
What Happens Next
The sharp reversal in approval ratings could pose significant challenges for Trump and the Republican Party ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
As Gen Z's disapproval intensifies, Republican strategists may need to reconsider policy approaches on key issues like affordability and economic security.
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