Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/How Education and Gender Are Fueling GenZ
By Alex J. Rouhandeh
National Political Correspondent
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Thirty minutes into conversing with Ohio College Republican Federation President Spencer Mandzak, I was compelled to ask why he was a Republican instead of a Democrat.
After nearly three years in Washington, D.C., I found the answer to that question generally materialized within five minutes of meeting a politico.
Mandzak was different, however. He introduced himself by sharing an op-ed he'd written on the importance of curating bipartisanship online. He said that economics and foreign policy were his top political issues, and he offered no charged opinions on topics like religion or sexuality.
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"You're not going to get a lot of probably interesting viewpoints from me, just because I try to stay in my lane," he responded. "But I can tell you why I'm not a Democrat."
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As a high school junior in 2019, Mandzak was stressed during the college preparation process. He questioned whether he wanted to even apply because his standardized test scores were mid, as were his grades. On top of that, he was worried his race would hinder his chances of attending Miami University, where his parents met. Not getting into the school would've been akin to being shunned from home.
During this time, he was ramping up his consumption of political news and observed some on the left speaking openly against straight white men, issuing calls for that demographic to be removed from positions of influence.
"I feel like I've been told all my life that skin color doesn't matter, what you look like doesn't matter, it's how you are as a person. When I get to the real world, I get told, 'Well, actually, if you're a straight white male, then you're overrepresented and your opinion doesn't matter as much anymore.' It was just really shocking to me that so many people believed that."
Earning the support of young men would prove significant to Democratic competitiveness in Ohio, a one-time swing state where the GOP has pulled ahead. However, 53 percent of men aged 18-44 backed Trump in 2024, up from 45 percent in 2020, with the president expanding his support among all races, per the Associated Press.
This comes as more men share Mandzak's initial wariness toward higher education. Men account for 44 percent of young college students, per a 2023 Pew Research Center report. With education increasingly becoming a predictor of political affiliation, Democrats find themselves at an inflection point—embrace the values of high ed or risk losing a generation of young men.
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Democrats and the PMC
This story could not be told authentically without acknowledging that it spawned from my Master of Arts reporting thesis at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Historically, journalism was treated as a trade with reporters honing their skills on the job. That tradition saw arguably its greatest shift in the wake of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Watergate reporting that helped bring down the Nixon administration and attracted a new wave of talent from elite universities.
While I attended the selective S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, part of my decision to enroll at Columbia rested in the notion that education is often needed to get ahead in this field.
Journalism belongs to a class of professions that scholars Barbara and John Ehrenreich described in their 1977 essay for Radical America as the "Professional-Managerial Class [PMC]." A segment of the workforce that also includes artists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, professors, the Ehrenreichs described the PMC as "salaried mental workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor may be described broadly as the reproduction of capitalist labor."
While these jobs are not inherently partisan and attract individuals across the ideological spectrum, the Ehrenreichs write that "the university is the historical reproductive apparatus of the PMC." College-educated voters backed Harris by a margin of 13 points.
While the PMC may see itself as an ally of the working class, the Ehrenreichs write that relations between the two can be acrimonious. "In daily life, [the PMC's] function is the direct or indirect management and manipulation of working-class life—at home, at work, at school," they write.
While in the past, the left-leaning PMC could ally with working-class unions, organized labor has declined since the '50s, and the composition of today's working class looks different. An analysis published by the nonpartisan Brookings Institution of two 2023 reports by the Progressive Policy Institute writes that more working-class Americans hold jobs in health care, retail and food service. The report suggests that because of this shift, more members of the working class dream of starting a business opposed to attending college and joining the PMC. That objective better aligns with the Republican elite.
While the upper echelons of the left may mirror the PMC, the right hosts a greater share of those who the Ehrenreichs refer to as the "classical petty bourgeoisie," tradespeople, farm owners and small to midsize business owners. Republicans on average are 26 percent more likely to start a business than Democrats, per a study published in the Journal of Finance.
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A 2022 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 6 percent of Republicans became entrepreneurs compared with 4 percent of Democrats between 2005 and 2017, in a sample of 40 million party-identified Americans. The Democrats have long been the party associated with regulatory enforcement, which can create headaches for entrepreneurs. This stance may not bode well for the left's recruitment of Gen Z because, as Forbes has written, the cohort is "fast becoming known as one of the most entrepreneurial generations to date."
Change in Georgia
With the cost of college rising and the appeal of being one's own boss ever-present, more Americans across a spectrum of identities may be less inclined to follow the PMC track.
Davante , the 28-year-old president of the Young Democrats of Georgia, worries his party's message may not be adjusting to appropriately to this shift.
Jennings is a Black, Atlanta native father of one. He first got involved with the Young Democrats in high school amid the enthusiasm around President Barack Obama's campaign. As a high school student in Lynchburg, Virginia, at the time, Jennings faced an atmosphere at his high school that he describes as "so racist," with the N-word regularly used in the halls.
Because the people who used it were proudly Republican, Jennings decided he'd be proudly Democrat.
However, what Jennings has learned in the decade between high school and his ascent to Democratic leadership is that the politics of race have changed. Over that period, Obama finished his second term, America saw nationwide protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, and Georgia elected Reverend Raphael Warnock to the Senate.
"[Democrats are] still doing the whole like, 'Oh, George Floyd!' or like, 'Republicans are racist,' and I don't think that messaging hits anymore," Jennings said. "Race isn't gonna win U.S. elections."
Jennings said that while the salience of racial politics has weaned, the significance of economic issues has gained. He said this is especially true among Black men, who supported Harris at a 13 percent rate lower than Biden, with the former vice president carrying 74 percent of the demographic.
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While Jennings follows the intellectual framework that sometimes appears on college campuses which connects racial justice to other societal problems, he thinks leading with such rhetoric often creates confusion.
"Some organizing spaces...it's like this whole in-depth analysis about certain things where I'm like, 'very well-worded, very well, critically thought out,' but it's not that damn complicated." He doesn't want education to be a barrier to engaging with politics. When offering solutions, Jennings thinks Democrats should focus on how they're going to improve the lives of voters instead of explaining the intellectual underpinnings to their plights.
Successfully doing this means not just considering the perspectives of the college educated but the individual who is seeking to make a living through alternative means. Having attended Savannah State University, dropped out and reenrolled, Jennings has thought critically about college and how it aligns with his ambitions. He doesn't think everyone should take that path, however.
"Truck drivers make good money, so if you're in your 20s and want to travel and see stuff and don't have family responsibilities, like go do that. I mean, that's how people should take their approach to education, and it shouldn't be like, 'to be a Democrat, I need to be educated.'"
GOP Gaining
Similar themes can also be seen in the Democratic Party's relationship with the Latino community, particularly its men. Trump won 48 percent of Latino male voters compared with Harris' 50 percent, a 10-point jump from 2020. One of the individuals leading this effort was Emanuel Hernaiz, the 24-year-old former state director of Latinos for Trump in Georgia. Hernaiz also serves as treasurer of the Georgia and Atlanta chapters of the Young Republicans and in April concluded his term as chair of the Georgia Association of College Republicans. A Puerto Rican Spanish speaker, Hernaiz knows the Latino community well and believes its voting patterns exemplify what his party is doing right and what the Democrats are doing wrong.
"When you look at the message that Latinos are going for, it's work, it's economics, it's faith and it's family, and that's what the Republican Party was talking about." Hernaiz thinks the demographic appreciated Trump's machismo and his status as a businessman, while viewing the Democratic Party's immigration message as tokenizing and its accusations of racism as cheap. Trump's polices were straightforward like his manner of speaking, which Hernaiz believes assured voters he would advocate for their economic interests.
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Hernaiz further noted that accusations of bigotry and warnings of Project 2025 failed to capture the mind of voters. These were concerns of the Democratic elite, he said, not the average voter. Hernaiz saw much of this messaging reflected on college campuses and in academia. While people go to college to grapple with ideas, most attend with the prevailing ambition of securing a high-paying job. If Democratic messaging caters to the populace more concerned with the first objective than the latter, Hernaiz suspects their appeal will continue to wane. "My father is the provider in my family," he said. "He didn't finish college, but when he's doing all his business deals, they don't ask him about his degree."
Hernaiz said he's benefited from his time at the University of Georgia but acknowledges that higher education aligns with his ambitions of a career in politics. Yet, with its rising costs and charged political atmosphere, college may be less appealing to others who see a route to economic prosperity through trade school or online skills-based learning.
If the Democrats fail to respond to these interests while relying on broad-based accusations of racism and discrimination, Hernaiz likes his party's chances moving forward.
After Graduation
Racial equity remains a problem in the United States. On the wage front, the median earnings of Hispanics who worked full time were $947, while Black people earned $991, white people $1,225 and Asians $1,553, according to a July 22 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And this figure represents just one example of the variety of ways in which inequality manifests in the United States.
While many would deem it immoral for Democrats to abandon their historical pursuit of addressing these problems, the last election showed that they may have something to learn from Republicans when it comes to reaching these communities.
White people continue to comprise a plurality of America's college graduates, and current enrollment trends show that among Gen Z this cohort is beginning to skew female. As the Ehrenreichs write, justice often rests at the heart of PMC professions, but if this well-meaning intent is not conveyed appropriately, it can risk being seen as tokenizing and out of touch, as Jennings and Hernaiz have suggested some past messaging has come across.
Furthermore, when identity becomes central to political motivations, it can risk leaving those who do not share that identity feeling alienated.
Mandzak went on to graduate from Miami University and, in addition to his College Republican duties, also served as secretary of academic affairs within the student government and chief of staff of the university's ASPIRE office, which works on community engagement.
While there's more to his alignment with the GOP than his experience in high school, I spoke to a dozen students at The Ohio State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology who cited similar displeasure with the left's handling of identity politics. Without course correcting, the Democrats could lose their chance at earning the votes of this generation of Americans.
Beyond identity markers like racial background and gender, Americans also recon with the less visible affiliation of their status among the PMC, the classical petty bourgeoisie, or the working class. The lived experiences of these groups differ as much on values and ambitions as they do economically.
While empirical evidence may not yet demonstrate that the Democrats are helmed by the PMC and the Republicans are led by the petty bourgeoisie, the Ehrenreichs' picture does reflect many cultural and political divisions seen today. Ultimately, the working class will continue to shape elections as 62 percent of Americans remain without a college degree and, according to Statista, only 34 percent of households earn over $100,000.
Winning Gen Z and determining America's future means grappling with that reality and making the case to voters why one's party represents the worthiest ally.
Editor's Note: This story was written under advisement of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where the author conducted this reporting in completion of his Master of Arts thesis.
Correction 8/21/25, 1:07 p.m. ET: This article was updated with a correction to the caption information for Emanuel Hernaiz.
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